Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

Schrock Innovations’ new Papillion, NE Service Center is coming along, so I thought I would post a construction update.

Things have been busy lately, so these pictures are about a week old. Since they were taken electrical and data wiring is in place, the bathroom is complete (very important!) and Carberry Construction is starting on the floors.

The front desk is in place. Carberry fabricated the desk and topped it with black granite. We implemented a new feature in the front desk of the Papillion Service Center. Notice the lowered section of the front desk. We need the front counter to be tall enough for check writing and service, but sometimes it is tough for our customers to lift their computers up there.

The new lowered section is an experiment to see if we can get the best of both worlds.

The walls have been painted and the hanging electrical drops are in place.

We are just waiting on the floors to begin bench installation, inventory shelf delivery, and utility hook up.

Then the real fun begins!

If everything goes well, we are planning the grand opening for the weekend of October 8th.

Schrock Innovations‘ PC Maintenance Checkup Sale is by far one of the most popular times of the year to bring a computer into their computer repair Service Centers.

Over the past week Schrock’s technicians have been pulling overtime to keep up with demand.

As you can see, as soon as Schrock launched the sale computers started pouring in to the Service Centers.

By the end of the first day more than 100 computers had arrived for the $30 maintenance offer. Throughout the course of the sale Schrock took in over 1,000 systems for maintenance between Omaha and Lincoln, NE.

The load was unusually weighted toward desktop computers over laptops. Over the past couple years Schrock has seen a steady shift away from desktop computers toward notebooks.

The company has also been advertising on FM radio stations for the past 9 months which tends to bring in a younger demographic who prefer the portability of a notebook over a desktop. Either way, it was a little surprising to see the desktop hanging in there in the quantity department.

Schrock;’s customers oftn hear that the Maintenance Checkup Sale is going on for “one week only,” but in reality Schrock’s technicians have been working under a load of 100+ computers in queue for more than 3 weeks now.

When Schrock launches a sale this big, it is always a challenge to keep turn-around times reasonable the customer.

To help moderate the work flow, Schrock will email customers about the sale first, then work through the bulk of that response before taking it live on the radio.

Schrock emailed over 8,500 customers about the sale and the response was immediate and intense.

While a flood of Schrock’s existing customers was expected, we were all shocked to see that about 20% of the computers coming in after the email were new customers. Apparently the sale announcement email went viral with customers forwarding it to their friends and relatives.

All in all, Schrock’s technicians have been putting in 60-70 hours a week EACH in an attempt to keep up with the demand. With the sale ending today at 5 PM they should have everything back to normal again in each Service Center within a few days.

Thank you Schrock customers for another amazingly productive Maintenance Checkup Sale!

The most recent radio ratings came in earlier this month and our KFAB Compute This radio show in Omaha Nebraska dominated the competition.

Before we saw the ratings the staff at Clear Channel warned us that typically it takes a couple of ratings periods for a new show to catch on.

With that as a precursor, you can understand why I was thrilled to learn that Schrock Innovations has the #1 rated program in our time slot!

Comparing From Then to Now

Having the #1 show doesn’t mean much if the time slot was #1 before you got there in the first place. KFAB pulls great ratings – the best in Omaha – so it was important that we check our current results against how the station did in the last ratings period before we came on the air.

In the previous ratings book, KFAB was #2 in our time slot with an average of 23,000 listeners at any given point in time.

After our show aired for a mere 13 weeks, KFAB jumped to #1 in the time slot with an average of 36,000 listeners at any given point in time! If what they told me is in fact true, we should see these numbers continue to rise in the next book as Compute This! matures in the Omaha radio market.

Thank you Listeners and Callers!

I want to take a moment to thank all of our great listeners and callers that make Compute This what it is on KFAB and on KFOR (where we have held the top ratings in our time slot for 7 consecutive YEARS). Without you we would not have a show!

Compute This! is a weekly call in show that airs in Lincoln on KFOR 1240 AM at 10:00 AM and on Sunday in Omaha on 1110 KFAB from 7-8 AM. Both shows are live and listeners can call in to the shows and get help with their computers.

If you have missed Compute This! you can also download individual shows on Schrock Innovations’ website or you can subscribe to the iTunes podcast.

Two months before our Omaha Service Center opened we started hiring new technicians to train in Lincoln. Some of those technicians worked out and some did not, but Joe Clark is proving to be a customer service go-to guy and just the kind of employee Schrock needs in Omaha.

Joe had a significant background in network cabling, operations management, and field repair experience at Qwest so we decided to bring him on board for a 90-day trial.

From day one Joe showed professionalism and the kind of concern for our customers’ satisfaction that a tech needs to have to succeed at Schrock Innovations.

Now that the Omaha Service Center is up and running you can find Joe helping customers on the phone, in their homes, and on our benches.

Welcome aboard Joe and thank you for your commitment to Schrock’s customers!

https://www.thorschrock.com/2009/01/31/schrock-innovations-opens-new-service-center-february-10/Sunday morning at 7:00 AM I took to the KFAB airwaves for our weekly Compute This radio show (available free on iTunes) to announce the opening of the Service Center that afternoon.

The show was awesome and I left the studio a little less nervous than when I got up that morning.

A Smashing Success!

We had over 100 people come in that Sunday (10/10/10 no less) and nearly all of them brought computers in for a discounted Preventative Maintenance Checkup.

The Omaha staff did a great job making everyone feel welcome, processing in the computers and making sure everyone got a helping from the Lovely Kimberly’s amazing cookie buffet.

In fact, 11 days later – after the glow of the grand opening had completely passed, our bench is STILL full with an average of 11 computers coming through the service center every day.

What is New in the Omaha Service Center?

In 2008 we built a state-of-the-art Service Center in Lincoln, NE. We got a lot of things right when we built that, but we also could have done a few things differently.

For example, we built the walls in the new Omaha Service Center all the way to the ceiling to help reduce echo, we shortened the distance from the front desk to the front door, and we leased two full bays – one for retail and service and another for repair.

The new configuration allowed us to install 40 bench spots (as opposed to Lincoln’s 26) – and thankfully so. As you can see in the picture above, the bench is full!

What’s Next for Schrock Innovations?

Now that Omaha is launched and moving I am working to catch up on things I have been neglecting (like this blog). We also have some big events coming up soon:

• Our 2010 Holiday Special
• Possibility of a Black Friday Sale
• Significant internal and external website updates
• A new software product that many of our customers have been asking us to make for years

Over the past two weeks I think I have been busier than at any other point in my life. Most of the work I have been doing surrounds the launch of our new Computer Repair Service Center in Omaha, NE.

We had a big hold up on the permits (over six weeks!) but finally the City of Omaha got us everything we needed and our general contractor was able to get started on our job.

We got a lot of things right when we built our new Lincoln Service Center in 2008. We also overlooked some things that we plan on doing better in the Omaha Service Center. For example:

• Lincoln has too much display space an not enough bench space – Lincoln has 26 bench spots and Omaha will have 40
• While our concrete counters look great, they are hard to keep clean. We decided on stainless steel for Omaha’s display fixtures
• Although our conference room in Lincoln is handy, it is wasted space. We eliminated it in Omaha and replaced it with a high top table and some stools.

With any luck construction should be complete on our bay by the last week of September and we should be ready to service customers by October 3. Stay tuned and I will keep you posted!

The audio for the July 24, 2010 Compute This Radio Show is now available online.

You can right click here to download the audio to your computer or MP3 player.

On this show, Thor and Chris touched on the following topics:

• Launch of the Smart Summer of Savings Sale Event
• Examples of Great Schrock Service
• Lots of Callers With Great Questions

Computer This airs on the following stations. Each show is a live broadcast and callers are always welcome:

• KFOR 1240 AM on Saturday from 10-11 AM – 489-1240
• KFAB 1110 AM on Sunday from 7-8 AM – 558-1110 (coming August 1st)

Also, don’t miss the Living Digital Show on 1240 AM KFOR Saturdays from 2-5. Thor brings you the latest technology news from a non-technical perspective.

Encountering a computer error can be a frustrating experience, especially if you are unaware of its cause or the steps you need to follow to troubleshoot it. One of the most common Windows errors that irritate computer users are DLL errors.

So, what are DLL errors anyway and how does one deal with them?

DLL files are a group of files that contain codes that allow them to perform one or more specific functions, such as providing graphical user interface for applications or controlling dialog boxes. A DLL file can be used by multiple applications simultaneously.

This brings us to the next question – Why are DLL errors so common? Well, there are many reasons for a DLL error, but the main reason for their frequent occurrence is attributed to the fact that these files are present in huge numbers on all Windows PCs.

One of the most common types of DLL errors are “missing or not found” DLL errors. Examples of common “missing or not found” DLL error messages are shared below: