Management



About Visiting Geeks

“Visiting Geeks’ expert computer advice has been featured in the Boston Globe, Newburyport Daily News, The Eagle Tribune & The Portsmouth Sunday Herald.” read articles

A Private, Family-owned, North Shore Business

Visiting Geeks' Mission
To provide outstanding technical computer support for home users and small businesses. We will support all major operating systems (Mac OS, Windows), network and wireless technologies. We will be on time, courteous and efficient. We will provide honest, unbiased information to our clients to maximize their computer resources and minimize support costs.

What Makes Us Different? Business Hours
Experienced Technicians Service Areas
The Visiting Geeks Experience Payment Options 
Popular Computer Services Benefits for Your Business
Our Guarantee Popular Questions
Special Treatment for Customers SAVE MONEY! Referral Program
My Computer is Slow! Helpful Articles


What Makes Us Different?
There are five areas that truly distinguish Visiting Geeks from our competition.

1. - We’re family-owned and offer a level of personal service most other computer repair companies cannot. For us, it’s not a numbers game. Instead, we’re focused on building relationships with one customer at a time. Ultimately, we know that if you’re satisfied with our computer repair services that you’ll call us again for a future computer project and refer us your friends, family and associates. Existing Visiting Geeks customers know they’ll always receive a warm reception every time they call. And in most instances, there will be a warm and responsive person answering the phone, not voice mail.

2. - We provide consistent, friendly, responsive and reliable computer networking, security and wireless services in a timely manner at a reasonable price. You’ll find our prices are right in the middle. 

3. – All of our technicians must pass a background check. Heck, even our administrative staff has too. We run each technician through county, state and federal background checks. And where available, we check the state’s sex offender’s list. Unfortunately, not all states participate in the latter. We realize we’re sending people into your home or small business. Therefore, we carry out our due diligence in building a responsible, reliable, respectable and safe computer technician team.

4. – We will happily provide references. In fact, more than likely we can provide several references located in your town, since we’ve provided computer repair services to thousands of customers. We will want to know who you are before providing you this information. Out of respect to our references, we do our due diligence and only refer serious inquires.

5. – We come to you! That’s right, gone are the days when you had to lug your computer around to some repair shop in a town 20 miles away. Instead, we provide on site computer repair services, so you can rest your back and save time.


Experienced Technicians
All Visiting Geeks computer technicians are mature, friendly, patient and understanding individuals. You need more than a 10-month computer certificate to be a Visiting Geek! You need real-world experience. In fact, hands-on computer experience is really the only way to acquire the knowledge that’s necessary to troubleshoot the mass of computer problems that arise every day. Said another way -- In order to solve peoples’ problems, you need to be able to look at the larger solution, rather than the particular problem. The ability to do so only comes from years of experience. Computer training classes and book smarts are no substitution for hands-on experience. At least, we don’t think so!

Visiting Geeks technicians have a minimum of five years professional desktop experience, primarily from Fortune 2000 companies. This experience allows us to provide corporate-like, professional quality support for small businesses and homeowners north of Boston.

Certifications
Between all our technicians, we have almost any certification you need, including: MCSE, A+, Network+, Security+, CISSP, CSSA and more! 

What do all these letters mean? 
Basically, not only do we have the real-word experience, but we’ve taken the time and made the financial investment to acquire professional certifications that put us in an elite class of computer professionals that can perform advanced computer networking, security and server services.


The Visiting Geeks Experience
First, call 978.346.4087 to schedule a visit. When you do, we’ll spend time on the phone exploring what your problems and computer needs are. We’ll also ask what type of computer(s) you have. For example, you may have a Dell desktop computer with a Windows XP Operating System. In the case of you needing equipment, such as a wireless router, we’ll also ask if you’ve picked up the equipment or if you need us to bring it. Either way is fine with us. We usually have popular computer equipment on hand at all times, simply for the convenience of our customers. Our technicians will usually have wireless routers and adapters cards on hand, since wireless networking is very reliable, and therefore, is growing in popularity. 

Upon entering your home or business our technicians review your computer concerns and our Terms and Services Agreement. You’ll be asked to sign the Terms and Service Agreement before our technician can begin work. The technician will then spend five to 10 minutes looking over your computer(s). He/she will then pause to have a conversation with you. The technician will tell you what they’ve found, what’s involved in fixing it, and to the best of our ability, we’ll provide an estimate of the time it’ll take to fix. Unfortunately, providing time estimates is very difficult. For example, if your computer is loaded with spyware, causing it to run extremely slow, it’s difficult for a technician to estimate how long it will take to run anti-spyware scans to rid your computer of these irritants. Our average spyware cleaning visit lasts about 1.5 hours; however, if you’ve never run an anti-spyware scan before, it can take longer.

Before we arrive, be sure to.....
Before our arrival we recommend you have a list of all of the computer issues you’d like us to address. It’s also much more efficient for us to get this list at the beginning of the appointment since, for example, if you want a data backup on one computer and a virus removal on another, it makes sense for us to start the backup first, since this procedure can progress on its own once initiated, while the tech works on your second computer.

At the end of the visit the technician will provide you with a copy of your receipt and Terms and Service Agreement, and we’ll ask for payment. We currently accept business/personal checks, cash and major credit cards.


Popular Computer Services
The following is just a short list of computer repair, networking, security and wireless services Visiting Geeks provides, north of Boston:

- Desktop support including: upgrades, anti-virus, SPAM and pop-up mgmt
- Install and configure software or hardware based firewalls
- Deploy secure wireless networks
- Reduce SPAM, a.k.a. unwanted email in your inbox
- Backup and disaster recovery planning and support
- Web content filtering; saving hours of lost labor
- Workstation and server support
- Design & installation of VPN networks, so multiple offices can securely share info
- New construction wiring for phone, data and video surveillance systems
- HIPAA & CIPA regulatory compliance
- iPod data recovery and training
- Guaranteed Service Level Agreements [SLAs] & response times


Our Guarantee
It’s our number one goal to satisfy you, our customer! To help us accomplish this, we need your help. 

Specifically, for you to communicate with us your goals, frustrations and expectations of what you anticipate the outcome of your computer repair experience to be. We will do the same in return – to communicate with you in plain English what’s wrong with your computer, what’s involved in fixing it and how you can expect the computer to perform after we’ve completed our work. 

For example, it’s unreasonable to think your computer will double in performance simply by adding more memory. This simply is not the case. In fact, in some instances you may not notice any improvement. Of course, we need to set your expectations in the beginning to help you understand why this could be the situation.


Special Treatment for Current Customers 
Our number one goal is to satisfy our customers; therefore, we take special care of the people who have already done business with us. We want all customers to be repeat customers. That’s why we offer the following additional benefits to existing Visiting Geeks customers:

Priority Scheduling
All existing Visiting Geeks customers receive priority scheduling. The reality is that we try to get anyone an appointment within 48 hours, but this is not always possible. However, when a current customer calls, and our schedule is really booked, we’ll stand on our heads to get our customer an appointment that day, if needed, or as soon as possible. Oftentimes we’re able to squeeze in an appointment if a technician gets out of another appointment early. The more flexible you are, the faster we can schedule an appointment.

We also encourage our existing customers to keep the communication lines open. For example, if you’re anticipating a new computer arriving and you want your favorite Visiting Geeks technician to set it up and transfer the data from your old computer, then you’ll want to stay in close contact with us so we can get you on the schedule the day the computer arrives.

V.I.P. Customers – Red Carpet Treatment
Who is a V.I.P. Customer? One that has done business with us more than 8 times and has referred us five or more new customers. V.I.P. Customers not only receive immediate scheduling, they also receive a complimentary in-person consultation annually to discuss and plan out their unique computer technology needs. Of course, scheduled at the V.I.P.’s convenience and their choice of location. Our red carpet treatment applies to both small business and residential customers.


My Computer is Slow!

The most common reason for your computer suddenly becoming slow is because of the gross rampant use of spyware. Unfortunately, when you’re surfing the Internet, junk commonly referred to as spyware or Malware is automatically downloaded on to your computer unbeknownst to you! Over time, this junk slows your computer down. The only way to stay ahead of this problem is to run frequent anti-spyware scans, or purchase an anti-spyware program that’ll head-off incoming spyware and run automatic scans. 

PLEASE NOTE: We are currently averaging 1.5 to 2 hours to clean up computers that are grossly loaded with spyware. As a rule-of-thumb, if you’ve never run an anti-spyware scan, then the longer it will take to clean your computer. 


Business Hours

Our normal business hours for on site computer repair are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We do offer emergency on-site visits during hours outside of normal business hours. However, we do charge a higher rate for emergency calls. See Pricing Schedule


Service Areas

We provide on site computer repair support to homeowners and small businesses north of Boston through southern New Hampshire and southern Maine. See detailed list of towns.


Payment Options
 
Once you're satisfied, we ask for payment at the end of your computer service visit. We accept business/personal checks, cash and major credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express.


Benefits for Your Business
We translate complex computer technology into simple language you can understand, and make educated decisions as to what is best for your business.

Increase Profits – At Visiting Geeks, our number one goal is to help your business compete profitably by selecting and using reliable and secure computer technologies.

Cut Costs -- We help you cut costs by optimizing your computer technology; enabling you to expedite the sharing of information among customers, employees and vendors. 

Save Human Resource Hours – If you want employees to be more productive in the office or while working from home, we’ll help you apply Internet filter controls and set up off site VPN access for traveling or work-from-home employees.

Stay within Budget -- We help your business keep within budget by making realistic and reliable technology recommendations that are scalable for when your business expands.


Popular Questions

May I drop my computer off? 
YES! We're located at 4 Merrimac Square in Merrimac, Mass. However, we strongly encourage you to call first, 978.346.4087. Sometimes we run out for emergency appointments. Also, please do not plan to wait for your computer. Instead, feel free to drop it off, but plan for 24 hours in order for us to diagnosis and contact you. In addition, please allow up to three business days for in-house repairs; longer if special parts need to be ordered. And remember, we're happy to come to you. Most of our computer repair work takes place at our customers' homes or place of business. Our in-house shop fees include a minimum $60 diagnostic fee which includes the first 15 minutes of repair.

Why is my computer so slow, it’s not even a year old!?
Your computer is most likely loaded down with spyware and viruses. We’d be happy to help. 

But I have updated anti-virus software!? Awesome; however, this will not help protect you from spyware. You need an anti-spyware program such as Adaware or Spybot to rid your computer of spyware/popups.

Why can’t I get this spyware [popups] off my computer?
It’s true, in some instances you won’t be able to ultimately remove certain spyware off your computer unless you rebuild it. What’s more, there’s no guarantee that once you rebuild your computer that the spyware won’t return. Unfortunately, the spyware advertisers [pornography, casinos, etc.] are winning right now and the anti-spyware software developers are having a heck of a time keeping up with them! Sadly, there is no immediate solution in sight.
 

Customer Referral Program - SAVE MONEY!

Save money every time you refer us a paying customer. When you do, we'll send you a coupon for $25 off your next computer repair appointment with Visiting Geeks. Remember to tell your friends, family and associates to mention your name when they call.


Helpful Articles

Recent Supreme Court Ruling - Child Porn & Freedom of Speech
A divided U.S. Supreme Court suggested that a federal law designed to restrict Internet pornography violated Americans' rights to freedom of speech, but the court stopped short of a definitive ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional. Click here to read.

Spyware
A solid explanation of what spyware is and why it exists. Learn more.

Trojan Horse
The following is a brief, but detailed description, of what a Trojan Horse is. Learn more.