The ‘job order ticker’ is certainly interesting.

I was a service provider for Onforce for a short while, very short. I did only one job. Here is my problem with Onforce. I got some stranger telling me and fixing the price that I get paid for a job. Now as an experienced tech, I have found that one, the customer really don’t know what the problem is, two there are usually more than one problem. So if I accept a job, I am tied into that price unless I want to renegotiate. I run a business, I don’t have time for that. In addition to that, I pay for my own advertisement of my business. These people go on line and pay usually twice as much when all they had to do is look in the local phone book. So I am putting my business reputation on the line for someone elses business.

Yea, the Geek squad has come to my town. They charge on the average of twice what I charge. The customers are going to find this out sooner or later, and they will never match customer service like I do. Right now the Geek Squad is hurting local established computer businesses. But customers are smart, and they will find out that they are paying way too much and they will come back to the locals. That is, if the locals can survive the hard times that the customers learning curve and our business is dead.

I’m a registered provider for OnForce. My feelings on it are…well…bleh. Most of the work orders that come through are “flat fee” work orders, By the time you take into account the price of fuel, taxes, OnForce’s 10% fee, etc most work orders end up being not worth my time.
The end users of OnForce seem to think the computer techs aren’t worth as much as your local bag boy at the mega mart. If I need work done on my car…I don’t get to schedule the job AND set my own price..I don’t know why people who need computer work seem to think they can tell me what I can charge. I let most OnForce work slide by without a 2nd look. It used to be a good market place…now I’m not so sure. It seems that some people in the tech industry are guilty about what they deserve to get paid. You can’t get rich doing break/fix…but you CAN survive if you know what your services are worth, provide those services to the best of your ability and just treat the clients right. I think more and more of the OnForce “techs” are part swappers…not real technicians. They jump on a $40.00 wireless network install to pay for the next kegger, not to provide service.

Danny, Mike-

As both of you having direct experience as providers for OnForce, what kind of vetting process did you have to go through? When I looked at
http://www.onforce.com/view/policies/ , I couldn’t really tell.

Is it just strictly an honor system?

Quite frankly, if I were a business owner looking for IT services, it would scare the crap out of me to go with these guys. What kind of assurances are there that the person performing the service is qualified?

Hi Matt & Matt, I am a long time loyal reader and thanks for all the great tips & advice that you and all the other folks at lockergnome have provided me over the years. As a provider for onforce I feel I can speak on the subject with some authority.

First, I agree with the previous comments in that 1) I let most work orders slide as they aren’t worth my time and 2) I have a reputation to consider. Often, the way the call works out is that I am stuck having to deal with a mess that the call description only touches on like the tip of a proverbial ice berg.

Anyway, when a provider sets up their online office at onforce, all qualifications, skills, and certifications can be listed there. When a buyer is shopping for a provider, that is taken into consideration along with ratings. Every call is finished with the buyer and provider doing a rating of one another.

When one is looking for a provider, call volume is given. It’s much like ebay. The more volume and better ratings a provider has, the more likely a buyer will choose them.

I am currently positioned to play the other side of the fence at onforce as a buyer although I have not placed a work order yet. I am involved in a digital signage effort and we will be needing techs to install and maintain the flat panels, digital players, and networking gear. Through this process, I have been assured that when a buyer accepts my work order, after having viewed the buyer’s qualifications, history, call volume, and ratings I can simply bump the provider if I am not comfortable with them and the call goes back out for other providers.

With onforce, it is first come first serve for the providers but with the buyers, well, you can pick and choose. Is this the best solution for service buyers? I don’t know. I can empathize with buyers on this one but I for one have not been able to find local, reliable, help on a contract basis. Another aspect to consider is that skills can be learned but work ethic is elusive and I have not found the solution on this one yet but I am eager to hear other’s advice.

Incidentally, I have taken on a full time job as my days of frustration and roller coaster income have to end. Thus I let the onforce “opportunities” slide right by. I’ve had too many experiences where I have had to run two hours each way with no travel to swap a system mother board including “tattooing” only to find that at the site, there is no cellular coverage, no fast internet, and the mobo is bad or the problem is something else for a flat $45. Believe me, I only did a few of these nightmare calls before I saw the light. Now, if I take a job, it is in town and the dollars have to be right. If is pays less than $100 bucks it’s not worth it to me. Like the other commenter stated, with fuel and phone expenses and the 10% coming off the top, it ends up costing the provider to run the call. It makes no sense to occupy the better part of one’s day for a measly $45 call that will potentially net $35 or less. The provider has to be smart, set boundaries and standards and keep them. When one is starving to death in this over-saturated competitive business it is easy to loose one’s focus. Therefore, I say look to onforce as a suppliment to one’s revenue stream and focus on proper marketing of one’s own business. Build a loyal clientel and set them up on a regular program of maintenance. Build relationships and ask for referrals. It makes all the difference in the world. Onforce is not a substitute for taking initiative and venturing out of the cave and hunting down the work. In summary, onforce is probably the best service platform I’ve experienced thusfar, but if you wait for onforce to be your “meals on wheels” you’ll die in business.

Thanks for the opportunity to rant. Maybe one day I can share my experiences as a Geeks On Time provider/dispatcher. It will be a great opportunity to talk about ethics and decency. J

Back when OnForce was ComputerRepair.com, it had the feeling of “wow this can be the next great thing”. I can honestly say that OnForce is more a “marketplace” than most other models. To that end it can be seen as both good and bad. I served on the advisory council for both CR.com and OnForce, trying to get traction for policies that would improve the feeling and vetting process mentioned above, As it stands our company has completed over 1,200 Workorders and will continue to offer support where and when we can. We pass on some Workorders and others are countered with a conditional offer. Feel free to contact me off list.

I am a current service provider and let me give you some positive feedback about Onforce.

I have been a provider since 2005 and a buyer since 2007. I work both sides of the system to increase my onsite coverage. Onforce, if leveraged right, can be an extremely valuable tool. I have generated over 100K in the last 6 months alone.

I can understand your worries about qualified providers and let me give you a little insight on this first. In each provider profile, there is a list of certifications. These certifications are all verified and actually take 2 to 3 business days before they are approved for display. Another process is the background checks. This is a very detailed check by a third party and is very extensive. You are even required to a full drug test in your area and the results are then sent to the third party company.

Each provider is required to submit three references thar are verified. If Onforce cannot reach them then another reference is required. But I can go all day with the normal this is what they do etc…

As a young IT Firm Owner, I have all of my staff register with Onforce and we handle 98% of all work orders in our area. In addition to that, we have built great relationships with Buyers giving us the oppertunity to work on very large scale projects such as Roll Outs for large Companies, helped business meet their SLA as well as received training and certifications that are paid for by the buyers.

As a buyer, we are able to use providers to help our clients in a matter of hours instead of waiting for a Plane. We review the feedback of the Providers that we are routing work orders to and look at the type of work orders that the provider has completed.

Of course there is no perfect platform, but Onforce is close. They strive to be better by getting feedback directly from Providers and Buyers.

Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions 432.617.0199 ext 750

Best Regards,
Shane Bell
President
ITechWest Solutions

I too am an onforce providor and have been for the past 3 months. I’ve earned a total of $2700 and paid onforce $270 for their services while closing a total of 31 work orders.

Considering that one work order was actually $700 for some 15 hours of labor, the remaining 30 have netted me a grand total of 1730.00 after on-force fees. Thats not really a bad average, close to $60 per call, but it seems that the companies that use onforce as buyers, for the most part have very tight wallets. They are usually the 3rd or 4th lvl sub-contractor, and thus they have NOTHING to offer beyond the spend limit.

The people who truely do suffer are the actual end-users, these companies that buy contracts from Service Point actually use an outfit called “reliable IT” whom is very unreliable in that 1. they want you to replace a laptop system board for $45 (after on-forcce fees) and they require you to travel clear across town to pickup parts because they are too lazy to change their shipping pollicies. (parts should be sent to the EU location so that ANY tech who arrives can perform the service without having to waste 90 minutes getting parts.

Needless to say, some buyers take forever to close tickets, they have 10 pages of paperwork that they require you to fill out, and they want you to work as if you are an 18 year old ex-compusa techie, at the compusa standard rates (because even though Compusa closed their stores, they still own their revenue generating service contracts and they use Onforce to find the tech support they need to give the EU’s the satisfaction.

Long and short, onforce is a great concept, but it’s heavily abused and if you dare complain about a buyer or cancel a work order because the buyer has mislead you in the W/O, you will face being booted out of the onforce network. In an area where I live, the amount of competition is very high, it’s almost like every pizza boy in the area who has ever replaced the ram on his home pc is taking the jobs and this gives the buyer the advantage of paying $45/ call -

so dont rely on onforce to pay your rent. It’s a nice way to make a few extra bux here and there but you cannot live off it in my personal experiences.

And really, what do I get for paying onforce the 10% ?? Nothing but more headaches when you’ve got to deal with crappy buyers.

I have to agree with the comments, Im a current Provider and I have seen service calls fall to unreasonable prices where I laugh when I see the details and Price and think no one would do it…yet someone takes a job for $30 to replace whatever! It still amazes me!
Buyers are out to get cheap labor and really dont care who they get as long as there 3rd party contract is done! I rarely ever work for someone directly, its usally the subcontractor of the subcontractor!

Most providers are IT personel who moonlight on there off hours-or who THINK they know what they are doing!

Its a cut throat business- It reminds me of when the 18″ dish came out, you got paid $500-$700 to install them, Now its $25-$45 and they are all hacked in by the highschool kid down the street who has never install but one before.

-Just my 2 cents-
Keep it local - Support your local repair/installation companies!