sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information WHO IS RESPONSIBLE???

A customer of mine has called me several times regarding his AMANDA SOHO loosing settings...I ran a scan & checkdisk utility on it and it had no bad sectors and was fine...

After asking several questions it turns out that they had to let go a couple of employee's several weeks ago....WELL WE NEED TO GO NO FURTHER......

So they are pissed at me and will not pay my 2 invoices of $187.50 each for the 2 service calls.......I keep on telling people about changng passwords and they just dont.......SO NOW ITS NO CIGAR MONEY FOR A MONTH........

Lets hear how some of you would handle a cituation like this....Is it worth loosing a customer.....

Sometimes the question is, Is the customer worth keeping. We've had several customers order new sets and a couple of days later try and say that the new phone is bad. When we get there we discover it's a phone they've had for years and are trying to get it replaced for free. Customers like that are better off calling your competitors. If they are trying to burn you on this, they'll try it on something else more expensive later. If they call again tell them the del *.* command will fix it.




[This message has been edited by JOHNYREB (edited August 30, 2003).]

It may be overkill but I record serial #s of all equipment I sell and install.
As for service calls, there all COD with a few exceptions for very well established clients where I installed their system.
As for passwords, I put my own in, if the client wants it, no problem, I change it back to 1234 or default. This way I know that someone was in the system.
I locked up all the mailboxes in a lawyers office once, He threatened to sue me of coarse but I didn't care and he knew it as the service call was just and he didn't pay.
The next day he sent the check by messenger.
As for employees getting fired or quitting, the only password they should have is for their own mailbox and they shouldn't be able to do much damage with that.

did the people who were let go have access to the admin passwords???

Anyway, Mitch, send them a reminder that they are responsible for the tech work or they will be sent to collections. If you are only out your service call and no parts, then Johnyreb is right. Some aren't worth keeping. I make my customers sign a nice work order form for service calls and contracts for larger jobs. The paperwork is your only real protection, and sometimes even that is hard to enforce. I had a customer who owed me $2500 for 6 months. I finally logged into thier system and locked out all their access from the admin level programming software so they could not make any changes, which they do on a daily basis. I could justify this since the software was part of the purchase and technically did not belong to them since the bill had not been paid. A fine line I hope I don't have to cross much in the future.

My general rule for equipment sales is anything over $500 requires a deposit. If they can't get you a deposit, they might not get you a payment either. Write a contract. If you want a copy of the contract I use let me know. Keep in mind laws are different in some places, so you should have your attorney look it over to make sure it meets local reqiurements. On service calls, make them sign an order for services recieved. Helps you back up your billing. I could go on and on, but I think you guys get the point.

If you have had issues with a customer in the past, and they call you, say you will be glad to do the work, but it will be prepay or COD.

The 1 problem facing us....is the fact that tech manuals can NOW be gound on the internet...

The AMANDA company puts all their voice mail manuals on the web...so I guess a fired employee went to the net and downloaded the manuals...

Ever since the invention of voice mail have I never seen such an array of service issues that have become prevelent in our business...Sometimes I wish 1A2 never went away...But then again what other product can you mark up 150 percent with no problem...

Oh well...all in all there is 1 business I would never want to be in and thats auto repair...

Talk to ya all soon....Mitch

Hello Z...
Would you mind sending me a copy of your sales contract? I would like to compare with ours to make sure we are covering all areas. Thanks so much!
[email protected]

When I do a install or add/on in which the customer is not financing I always get a 50 percent downpayment. This covers the equipment and some labor, so if there is a payment problem Im not getting it in the BUTT.

When I finance the leasing company gets 2 payments first before they ship the equipment to the customer. Either way I dont have to fork out a bunch of $$$$...

As far as the voice mail issues, I have just typed up a addition to my service contract which explains voice mail, passwords so forth and so on.........

Boy oh boy....first there was never a problem with using a radio for MOH and now you cant...WHAT NEXT is gonna hold us back in telecom from making a living???????

Anyway.....I had more computer problems and had to reformat....but I found out that all those critical updates the Billy & the Boys puts out only slow down the pc more and more.....

I just put in another NEC DS1000 today....man oh man I love this system....

Have a great day all.........Mitch

We all get burned on occasion. The trick is do we learn from it? I say "heck yeah!" Was contacted today by a "biggy" that wasn't local but handles accounts here...wanted us to go do the work and bill them. I said, we accept credit card, want to pay that way? They said no..I said "Good Luck"
QUOTE]Originally posted by groundstart:
A customer of mine has called me several times regarding his AMANDA SOHO loosing settings...I ran a scan & checkdisk utility on it and it had no bad sectors and was fine...

After asking several questions it turns out that they had to let go a couple of employee's several weeks ago....WELL WE NEED TO GO NO FURTHER......

So they are pissed at me and will not pay my 2 invoices of $187.50 each for the 2 service calls.......I keep on telling people about changng passwords and they just dont.......SO NOW ITS NO CIGAR MONEY FOR A MONTH........

Lets hear how some of you would handle a cituation like this....Is it worth loosing a customer.....[/QUOTE]

By the way "$187.50 for a service call" are you guys hiring?????

$75.00 per hour...

2 hour service call equals $150.00

travel charge is 1/2 of hourly service rate.
which equals to $37.50.

This is an average industry charge. If you guys aint charging for truck or travel rates...get on the ball..

gas...vehicle expenses...etc.etc.etc.