Recently I spoke to a client who had a dud laptop. Sometimes the wifi would drop out for no apparent reason. Sometimes it would crash during Teams calls. It would occasionally bluescreen with different errors produced each time.
Each time they ran into a problem it took time away from productive time. They would call up for support but many of their problems were evidently caused by hardware. The client didn’t want to get it investigated by manufacturer as it was bought from a store, meaning that any warranty repairs would require taking it to the store and waiting 2-4 weeks for it to be sent away, in which time they’d be out of a device.
It also had Windows Home installed, and their login was tied to their personal Microsoft account which caused headaches any time they were asked to provide Office 365 credentials.
There are two things worth mentioning here:
- Don’t buy laptops from a shop.
Ask your IT provider for a quote. As an IT services provider we ensure that quoted hardware is fit for purpose, is business grade and has the correct operating system installed. The minimum quoting standard for Junius is a business grade device with 3 year NBD onsite warranty. On the off-chance that there’s an issue with the hardware a technician from the manufacturer visits your location to repair it onsite. I’ve seen an onsite repair for a busted touchpad occur on the same day that the request was raised. The device was repaired in 20 minutes. - Saving money costs more money.
I have heard the phrase “I can get a laptop for $200 cheaper at Such-And-Such Store” over the years, only for the client to run into these exact issues would be too numerous to count. This is a primary business tool which you would hope to be in use for 30-40 hours a week for 3-5 years. You don’t want to cheap out on this investment. Here’s why.
We created a Productivity Cost Calculator to put a dollar figure on user downtime. We sometimes use it to calculate the impact of a sitewide outage but it can also be used to determine the cost of missed productivity for just one user impacted 15 minutes a day. On the hourly rate of $36 per hour that adds up to $2,250 over the course of a year! Expand that to 5 staff, and include an annual maintenance cost of $100 and you’re leaving $11,750 on the table. That’s way more than most small businesses would budget for their Christmas party!
The Productivity Cost Calculator can be found on our Support Tools page under the Customer Support menu.
