I’m not one to get on a soapbox and share my views with strangers. I tend to bottle up my feelings and let them build over time.
Though we have not met we are not strangers, we are friends and colleagues sharing the common bonds of frustration, worries, victories and advice that come as part of the package deal we signed on for…Technology Services.
As i went about my daily responsibilities as owner of a three store business, all on military bases, I should have been thrilled with the constant flow of people dropping off, picking up, asking questions and the phone ringing non-stop. It had all the overtones of a good business day built on past successes.
But in the middle of all the welcome activity, I was still side tracked by a growing frustration that seems to be at the heart of the business making the big leap into prosperity or at least steady growth.
I have been involved with technology about 12 years, most of it on the side while in the middle of my 20 year radio career. When that ended, I was ready to dive head first into computer repairs starting as a one man mobile tech. That was eye opening. So I’ve only been in the retail side for about two years and most of it has been trying to figure out what I’m doing. Put me in front of a microphone, no problem. Put a broken pc on my bench, I’m pretty good at getting it going.
Now let me find the business tools to run a true computer repair shop and it’s like being slapped with a glove full of rocks. I gone through so many trials, demos and google searches, it’s like trying to find the corners of the universe.
I know there’s a ton of software on the market that does great things, but I have yet to find one, just one, that fits the needs of a computer shop. And if you do retail, that means having a system that tracks the repair life cycle ( in my case at multiple stores), provides quotes, takes deposits, has a POS tied in that will close out in true retail form, allow techs to make time stamped entries as they work, manage customer info, capture equipment information, provide robust reports, work in the cloud and allow some level of customization.
There are some that do part of these, but they end up being a one size fits all endeavor. Sure, I know, get something custom built, but if you’re like me, we don’t have the cash flow to spend 5 grand on something like this. I’ve seen some close calls only to find the person who developed it, stopped short of making it fit our needs and instead ask us to make it work around their creation. Or they just stopped nuturing the growth of their product as the industry evolved.
No on would ask a hospital to take an infastructure made for the auto repair industry and tell them they could customize a couple of fields and “here ya go”.
But I’m asked to do that with each new discovery. I go into it with a great mind set only to find they won’t take the floppy drive field out and replace it with something we need. In other words, they build it for today, take it or leave it.
I will continue to search because I have hope that as our industry grows and organizes, someone will step up and deliver what we need to survive. We’re making 3M richer one Post It Note at a time, now it’s our turn.
Best of Luck!
