Customer Service help

[Harold Mansfield]

I think $30 a day is a bit much. You can get a car for that. If it's a 3 day job or more, it's cheaper to buy something and then you'd always have a back up. More like free, or a couple of bucks a day would work. Of course the OP knows his clientele better than us.

[iambasic]

You can get a car for that. Obviously this only works if you have fast turnaround times on repairs. Nobody is going to pay you more than 1-2 days at that price.

It's a lot harder (and more expensive than 30 bucks) to get a cheap phone from some random store to use for a few days. If OP is standing right in front of them offering to let them avoid that hassle they really might say yes a good chunk of the time. Not everyone obviously, but the higher end the clientele skews the better it is.

I definitely wouldn't bother if it was going to just be a freebie. A free phone is going to get treated really poorly and is just another cost to the businesses bottom line. In general I feel that if customers want a better experience they should be happy to pay for it... Or it's clearly not as good as you thought it was.

Always provide the simplest version of what the customer is trying to pay for in my experience. They didn't ask for the extra bells and whistles and they probably don't want them. If you can't explain it to them as an upsell and have them say 'yeah that sounds like it's worth x$' it's making you less not more competitive.

[Harold Mansfield]

No I still think it's a good idea. Obviously need to work out the details though. Maybe just buy all cheap, rugged phones that can take a beating, or maybe give them option of renting a feature phone for more and sell it down the line. Just spit balling here.

I lost my Note 4. Had no intention of getting another Note since they took away the replaceable battery and expandable memory. Then I lost it, and insurance sent me a Note 5. I loved it and now I'm looking forward to the 8 ( There was no 6, and the 7 was recalled).

There has to be a lesson in there about putting the phone in my hand and making me love the brand again.

[iambasic]

Yeah I suspect that if Samsung and Verizon knew what the OP was doing he'd be giving out loaner phones that he got at 0 cost from Verizon. Of course then he'd have to give them out, track them, and generally have loaner phones be part of his life for 0 revenue. Only worth doing in exchange for a solid commission from them on cell phone sales.

EDIT: And let's be real, if he went this way he's a verizon franchise store with a electronics repair sideline in 24 months. Those big companies aren't willing to allow a ratty (relatively) looking mom & pop share space with them. If the OP wanted to own a cell phone store he'd probably own a cell phone store.

[thegirlgrotto]

The only thing to do to get somewhat of a handle on this is when a person email you to inquire about your service, in the auto response email highlight possible time frames so they will know upfront they won't be getting their devices back within 1 day. I would also highlight it in my bio on social media as well.

From dealing with some of my retail clients, the #1 mistake is that they mention the time frames up front. It's not enough to make a slight mention, you need to stress it in writing and in your over the phone interactions with the customers.

Another idea is to send a "mid service update" so if someone bring in a device on Monday and you won't be done until Friday, send a progress email on Wednesday to let them know "hey I haven't forgotten about you". This can be automated through your CRM service provider.