PlumChoice

60 Nano Seconds of Fame

A Sunday or two ago, the TV news magazine 60 Minutes replayed a story first aired last January on consumers’ love-hate relationship with the technology that surrounds them.  About this time last year, PlumChoice was contacted by the program’s producers asking for perm ission to come and film some of our techs in action.  I’m proud to say that two of PlumChoice’s finest – Jon  and Jamie – were featured in the story as part of a don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-‘em montage of our industry’s various tech help options. 

While it was all very exciting and everyone involved with the 60 Minutes crew was very nice and professional – it was pretty clear from the start that they just didn’t get it.  We watched them smile politely as we talked about the wonders of remote service, all the while getting the sense that they viewed one service option pretty much like any other.  The resulting story focused almost exclusively on “the tech in the driveway” model since that’s the model most people know.  But what a shame!  60 Minutes could have talked about the revolution going on inside the home services support arena – the revolution that says consumers don’t have to pay high prices and wait days for qualified technicians to help them.  They could have talked about how the Internet is completely changing the face of home services from one focused on break/fix to one far more comprehensive and flexible – not to mention more capable of servicing the increasingly wired home.

Perhaps one day, while waiting on hold (can’t resist the sound effect of the ticking stop watch here!) to schedule a technician’s help some 48 to 72 hours later, the producers will remember their visit to PlumChoice and realize it’s not about the success of the “geek,” it’s about the success of the consumer.

Time to Get Your Back Up!

My heart sinks every time I hear a customer tale like the one we heard from Jane this past Labor Day weekend. Jane’s hard drive went kaput on her, doing away with all of her data and critical files, including some cherished photos. She had tried to do the right thing by purchasing an external hard drive to which she would periodically copy her folders. But when she went to retrieve what she expected would be her complete backed-up data, she learned that not all had been copied properly. Her short-cut folders had failed to back up the data within them and her Outlook information was nowhere to be seen. Jane works from her home and she was facing the prospect of having to recreate an alarming amount of information and documentation. She was understandably upset.

While we were able to help her recover some of her key files, only so much can be done without adequate back-up. So please, before you make another move, get your files properly backed up. We are firm believers in Carbonite’s solution for this – we believe in it so much that we’ve included it in our primary services subscription package (http://www.plumchoice.com/serviceoptions.asp). This allows us to continually back up customers’ files on independent servers that will keep your data safe. But regardless of the solution you pick, make sure it’s capturing all of the files you want and maintaining it on a secure server.

Expect that your hard drive will go south on you at some point – usually at the worst time. With the proper back-up, when it does, it will be no big deal. Just ask Jane, our newest subscription plan user.