I’m pretty small so far, a break/fix model at the moment. I want to be able to offer remote services using connectwise(unless you have a better alternative). I see there is a “remote support” portal page on the lawrence tech site, but how do you manage it from there?
Suppose I’m Joe Smith from Arizona and I’m having problems with… idk, the sound on my computer. I find your website, click remote support, then join the portal session. Then what? What happens? Am I taken to a billing section? What am I charged? Do I pay ahead of time? There don’t seem to be any hours listed there either. Lastly, and quite possibly most importantly, what is the percentage of times you cannot resolve the customer issues remotely? What happens if you have to reboot their machine?
Sorry for the bombardment but I’m trying to offer this service locally and I’m just not really quite sure how to administer it from a business standpoint.
Hi @survivalbloke We do remote service as well and we charge by the 15Min increments rounding up or rounding down to the nearest 15 min increment. We use meshcentral as it makes a great opensource alternative to screen connect.
Most problems can be fixed in the 15 Min interval,
once were done with the fix or 15 mins have passed,
we collect the customer info and put into our CRM (ITFlow).
If the issue is fixed we invoice them via our CRM (ITFlow)
If we cannot fix within the time period we reassess the situation and we get the client’s information
and then call the client back with an estimate/quote, Once they agree we proceed further.
If it requires onsite intervention and you are not in their location, then find someone local to their area maybe via craigslist and just 1099 that person and they will be your remote hands.
We never had a client not pay and we require checks to be sent out only, no credit card, we make this clear up front. We give new customers 7 days to pay existing customer are on a net 30 day
Thanks for the insight! I’m going to look into those items you mentioned, meshcentral and ITFlow. For the latter, I didn’t find ITFlow specifically, but I did see flowcrm.com. Is that what you’re referring to?
Hey question for you - well, two really. As for meshify, I just watched a ton of vids and it seems pretty legit, however, what I didn’t see anywhere was how your client on the other end joins a session. Witch connectwise, you tell them to visit whateverpage.screenconnect.com , and you give them a code to enter which joins them into a session. How does that part work with Meshcentral?
Secondly, I see you are actually the author of ITflow. What prompted you to develop that? I’m currently using Quickbooks Online which has its ups and downs. One major up is that I can bill electronically, and everything is entered into my ledger correctly - automatically. Although it has at least enough downsides to compensate. I’m interested in what prompted you to begin work on that project, and what your future plans are with it?
You can setup Invite by Code Groups in MeshCentral so for example you would create a group called let say Invite Click the Invite by Code put a code in there. Put the link it generates on your website. Have your clients click that link then tell them the code. They put in the code and they download the client when they double click on the agent, their computer will show up in the invite group.
We created ITFlow to handle most things IT Related and to reduce reliance on other Companies such as Quickbooks / ITGlue etc and put us in control.
We use Connectwise Control for the remote support connections and we either have them pre-pay via YouCanBookme or we have them pay an invoice ahead of time we create in InvoiceNinja. We accept credit card via either method. This is the disclaimer from the Hire Us page on our site regarding that type of work:
Warranty – Due to the nature of the work that we perform, there is no warranty on hourly work. Each hour that we work is billable regardless of the outcome of said work. While we will make recommendations on the level of effort required to implement a solution or fix an issue, it is up to you to let us know if there is a cap on the number of hours we spend per engagement.
Thanks for sharing this! I had been using Mesh Central for subscribing clients, and Microsoft Quick Assist for one-offs. Didn’t realise the code option was available in MC.