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I am thinking of starting a computer repair company which i can do part time mostly in the evening and weekends. I am looking to target home users and most of the job would be done remotely using remote tools. Hardware repairs would need to be arranged.

I was wondering if anyone in the UK has ideas of setting such up and which remote tools i can get for free which can be used for business. Any other information or knowledge you have to make me understand this field will be highly appreciated.also how can i get paid if i run most of the business remotely?

7 Spice ups
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Team Viewer, Mikogo, and LogMeIn are good, remote assistance tools that you can use with home customers. PayPal is great for getting paid remotely, too.

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Thanks Josh.Teamviewer is free but i think not for business.i might be wrong.I am thinking its going to be hard to explain to home users who dont know a lot about computers to install team viewer and give me the ID number and password.on thier PC. I have used fast support before but i am thinking if something like that is available for free where users just need to install and i am in.

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You couldn’t pay me to support home users.

5 Spice ups
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Agreed, Denis. Been there, done that. You really must possess A LOT of patience.

2 Spice ups
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You could try with join.me. It’s a LogMeIn product, but I’m pretty sure the basic version is free.

If you have a Windows box you could use as a server, check out ScreenConnect, as well.

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Google Chrome has a new (beta) remote desktop client in the chrome store, free and easy

MSN Live Messenger (or whatever it’s called now) has one built in, as well

1 Spice up
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Good luck… and like others have said lots of patience needed and thick skin!

Where are you based?

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Part of the beauty of doing this type of thing “for yourself” is that you don’y have to tolerate pain in the ass home-users any more than you want to… I’ve had a client or two that I stopped supporting because they were so high-maintenance that no matter what you did they were never satisfied… being the “boss” you can make those calls for yourself and say “sorry, not interested in helping you at all”.

Although keep in mind, word of mouth does travel… however if the user was that much of a pain in the arse, most people won’t take their opinion too seriously anyway.

EDIT commercial clients are generally easier to deal with and pay better/more easily…

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Hi you need translate this , I dont speek and write Inglish very wel, sorry

Bom, voce precisa decidir se vai trabalhar com PC Hardware ou Software, ou os dois, lembre-se que muitos problemas de hardware causam problemas no software, neste caso voce nao conseguira resolver a distancia, e tambem se for problema de hardware o PC pode estar inoperante e nenhuma das ferramentas citadas pelos amigos funcionará, afirmo que todas as ferramentas citadas pelo amigos são excelentes e voce vai precisar delas, acrescento que será util tambem uma conta no DROPBOX.

Lembrando ainda que muitos problemas relacionados a hardware voce nao conseguira resolver a distancia como por ex: ( network card, router config, bad HD, rocovery files, etc…), mas acho que isto voce ja sabe.

cont…

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Cont,

voce terá que analizar qual será o foco do suporte a ser fornecido, acredito não ser lucrativo suporte a pequenos problemas de softwares mas sim a solução global ( hard e soft),.

as ferremantas são faceis de se encontrar (this is no problem), o dificil é encontrar clientes, se voce os tem descubra quais sao suas necessidades e trabalhe isso, se voce nao os tem procure-os e tambem avalie qual a necessidade deles.

Avalie tambem as suas competencias profissional, isto o fará descobrir com o que vai atuar e se precisara ou nao de serviços de uma terceira parte.

Boa sorte , espero ter ajudado

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Well said Dennis. I barely have the patience to support my family and close friends over the phone (yes for free of course) but I’m not sure you could pay me enough to deal with the vast array of software, hardware and issues that home users bring to the table…

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Matt1515 wrote:

Well said Dennis. I barely have the patience to support my family and close friends over the phone (yes for free of course) but I’m not sure you could pay me enough to deal with the vast array of software, hardware and issues that home users bring to the table…

This is the primary reason I have not ventured into any business with PC’s. I love building them and am good at fixing them, but then… I think of all of those users that are going to be calling… the vast, far-reaching ocean of customers… relentless… like fervorous zombies reaching out “computer broke”… Ohnononono I shudder to think! ><

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MattRon wrote:

Well said Dennis. I barely have the patience to support my family and close friends over the phone

I don’t. OP is a brave, brave man.

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GUIn00b wrote:

…track the time when they call, when it adds up to 30 minutes or an hour, send them an invoice… 1. they will realize this is a business and pay you, 2. those calls will stop unless it is actually important and then you bill them…

(I don’t support my own family for free, unless they might be prepared to do whatever it is they do for a living, for me, for free)