The cautious shopper usually steers clear of local Mom and Pop establishments, like the local greasy spoon the local indoor flea market, in favor of large franchises, like, McDonalds, or Walmart. However, such strategies have not been found to be effective for computer repair. According to a PC World Magazine study published in its April 1998 edition, large franchise such as Radio Shack only provide a 50/50 chance of repairing your computer correctly, in a cost-effective manner. And it is safer to take your computer to a Mom and Pop repair shop that is recommended by the Better Business Bureau.
The PC World Magazine test problems were:
"Problem 1. To test phone support, PC world sabotaged each PC's display by renaming the video driver. A good tech should be able to diagnose the problem over the phone and guide a user to a solution: reinstalling the driver.
Problem 2. On 15 of the 20 systems, PC World damaged the IDE hard drive cable by cutting several of its internal wires. The damage was not visible, but the system wouldn't boot. Correct solution: Replace the IDE cable. On the remaining 5 systems we disabled the CD-ROM audio by cutting the sound cable. Correct solution: Replace the cut cable.
Problem 3. PC World moved one SIMM in each machine to an incorrect slot, reducing usable system memory from 16MB to 8MB. We didn't tell the technicians that the memory seemed faulty. The PCs ran so slowly, and the wrong order of the SIMMs was so easy to see, we believe a trained person should readily spot this problem."
Out of 20 stores of major franchises, from all over the United States, only two fixed all of the in-store problems correctly, and not one of them got the phone support problem correct. Many of the stores replaced expensive parts in order to fix the problem, instead of replacing the less expensive part that needed to be replaced. And some of them didn't fix the problem at all. Repair costs ran from $20 to $720 for repairs that should have cost around $20 to much less than $720.
OmniBIOS is not yet recommended by the Better Business Bureau, however we do have references and we soon plan to become recommended by the Association of Computer Repair Business Owners, soon. We would be happy to provide your company competent care at 1099 tech rate of $15 per hour* for three hours, for services that the big chains often charge $100.
*In order to keep our fees low, payment is due at the time of service.
