Most of my clients are over 50 and a good portion of them are over 65. I have learned that age has nothing to with computer aptitude. Computer aptitude is determined 99 percent by computer attitude. Those who are not afraid or intimidated by their computer are the ones who learn the fastest, no matter their age, gender or religious background.
One of my primary goals with my business, with the show and with the newsletter is to convey the message that you don’t have to be a computer wiz to use a computer.
I have many clients who do nothing but email on their computers and I don’t in any way feel that they are under utilizing their computer. If your life is made easier in any way because of your computer, then you are using it for its intended purpose.
Today I had a client whose grown kids had bought her a new computer. They did a great job picking out the system, but they probably bought her one that was a lot more powerful than what she needed.
Her grandson had hooked up the system and had done a pretty good job of cleaning it up and getting things all ready.
All she needs it for is email, solitaire and writing letters. For this her kids had bought her an Athlon 64 3700+ system with a gig of RAM and 250 gigs of hard drive space.
They also had called and setup an EarthLink DSL account. DSL is great, but they hadn’t set it up. EarthLink had sent her the box and her kids expected her to wait patiently until the next time they could make it to Grand Junction, they live in Nevada.
She couldn’t wait, so she called me. When I got there, the system was running great, but she was missing Internet service and a word processing program, the only two things she really wanted.
I tried to setup the EarthLink, but there was no DSL signal. I spent an hour and a half with EarthLink tech support, getting bounced from one level of tech support to another from one continent to another. Each tech asked me the same set of troubleshooting questions.
Finally, they said that they would have to send someone from the phone company out to fix the problem. I knew when I made the call that this is where we would end up. EarthLink said that the phone company would check the lines and that I would need to call EarthLink back in 24 hours to see what the problem was.
This whole appointment struck several nerves with me. First, the kids loved their mom enough to buy her a new computer, but they failed to put in the effort and time to get it running smoothly. They also bought her the computer that they would have purchased for themselves, not the system that she really needed.
Second, International Internet Service Providers (AOL, EarthLink, MSN) are absolutely unnecessary in most cases. Juno, NetZero and Netscape are kind of exceptions only because you don’t expect great customer service from cheaper companies. But, this client’s son was paying $40 per month for EarthLink. To go with a local service with local help, she would only have to pay $25-30 per month.
AOL, EarthLink and MSN should send a tech out to your house within 24 hours with the prices they charge for their service. Instead, local companies, that will often make house calls, are less expensive.
The last nerve that was struck was with several people unwilling to change to something better and cheaper simply because they didn’t want the hassle of changing email addresses. I try very hard to not try to talk people into changing what they are used to, but sometimes their comfort zone is costing them hundreds of dollars per year and for their money they are getting worse service, slower setups and more frequent problems.
If you buy your friend or loved one a computer and walk them through all of the decision making processes, please be prepared to act as free tech support in the future. If you just set it up and then leave them hanging so that they have to call in professionals, your favor may turn out to be more of a burden in the long run.
