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Printer Technician
- Thread starter D3G
- Start date
MarkSnelling
Mark Snelling - Hasco Graphics
out of curiosity, what do you consider ridiculous fees?
victor bogdanov
Active Member
I'm not sure how big Houston is ( being in the UK ) but I have had requests to travel long distances here to do repairs. The problem is as a tech if you need to drive 3 or 4 hours to get somewhere that fuel and time needs to be paid for. Assuming you want to get to the shop for opening time, that means a very early start. Then you can spend most of the day fixing something, so after 11 or 12 hours the last thing you want to do is face another long drive home, so that means overnight in a hotel.
victor bogdanov
Active Member
GSG is centrally located and can reach either end of the city in under 45 minutes.
"in the Houston area" shouldn't be more than 30 minutes away from a Roland dealer
3-4 hours you can drive from Houston to any other major city in TX, Dallas, austin san antonio.....
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
Try Joe Reyes. I know he works on Mutohs and Mimakis so wouldn't be surprised if he does Rolands as well. 210-376-8783
Sorry for not responding sooner but here is what GSG in Houston wants to charge me to troubleshoot a Roland printer:
2 hours of travel @ $150.00 per hour
1 hour of troubleshooting @ $200.00 per hour
The location of the printer is 22 miles from GSG's Houston location, which is 32 minutes of travel according to Google. So they are charging me more for their travel than they are for the troubleshootinh, total crap! If that's not highhway robbery than I don't know what is. You know if they were paying the tech $150.00 per hour and pocketing $50.00 I wouldn't be complaining. They pay the tech maybe $50.00 per hour and pocket the rest. Complete pile of you know what if you ask me. If anyone doesn't believe me ley me know, I'l email you the written estimate.
2 hours of travel @ $150.00 per hour
1 hour of troubleshooting @ $200.00 per hour
The location of the printer is 22 miles from GSG's Houston location, which is 32 minutes of travel according to Google. So they are charging me more for their travel than they are for the troubleshootinh, total crap! If that's not highhway robbery than I don't know what is. You know if they were paying the tech $150.00 per hour and pocketing $50.00 I wouldn't be complaining. They pay the tech maybe $50.00 per hour and pocket the rest. Complete pile of you know what if you ask me. If anyone doesn't believe me ley me know, I'l email you the written estimate.
GSG in Houston wants $500.00 for 1 hour of troubleshooting. 2 hrs travel @ $150.00/hr (22 miles mind you) and $200.00/hr for troubleshooting (I have a written quote). Is that considered ridiuclous to you?
MarkSnelling
Mark Snelling - Hasco Graphics
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
$200/hr is fairly standard these days although most places will give you a break on the travel if you're in town. It comes down to basic supply and demand in my opinion. There are very few techs to go around and even fewer good ones. Low supply and high demand always brings high prices.
They also have to pay that tech $50 per hour when he's not doing billable work as well, so they're not pocketing the rest. They're investing it in a system that supports their customers. Do they bill you for the time spent on the phone trying to figure out what's wrong before they come onsite? Do they bill you for the time it takes to order parts? Do they bill you separately for the carrying cost to keep common, but expensive parts in their tool kit? I think you're taking a rather simplistic view of their business.
And if you're a good customer who regularly buys materials and ink from them, they may be able to work something out with you or may have a different price program if you purchased your equipment from them. There are a lot of factors that goes into pricing services. I can almost guarantee that bashing them online is not going to get you a discount.
Good Luck
Joe,
I could agree with you to some degree, if they operated like other service type providers. At least with the folks we've had out from GSG, they come out and spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what's wrong and then say "I don't have the part, I need to go back to the shop and see if we have it, if not we'll need to order it". I would expect the technician (Roland Certified) to know what machine they are working on and have a reasonable stock of parts on their service van when they arrive (I'm assuming your logic of the high labor rates includes the cost of carrying the inventory of parts needed). I would also expect the technician to be an expert (again Roland Certified) on the machine and come to a clear diagnosis rather quick. Maybe I'm expecting too much, I don't know. This is my wife's business and I work in the mechanical construction and service world. If we sent a service technician out and the guy really wasn't well versed in what he was working on and didn't have reasonable access to parts, we wouldn't stay in business very long. You guys have a captured audience that doesn't have many options so in essence you have them over a barrel and you guys stick it to them, that's how I see it. Giving me the excuse that the guy has nothing else to do except sit and wait for me to call sounds like a business management issue. Frankly I'd be embarrassed to use that as an excuse for $200/hr labor rates. You can include all of those reasons that you've listed and you still wouldn't come close to $200/hr. Even if I could halfway get to your $200/hr for labor please shed some light on how the hell someone charges $150 per hour for travel. I'm not sure if you read that I am 22 miles from their store and they want to charge me $300, are you kidding me?
Rich