Tell us the fault. We will tell you the price.
Onsite in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, and in Geelong, Wollongong and the Central Coast. Anywhere else in Australia the machine comes to us, and we quote before anybody touches it.
This form is a request, not a confirmed booking. Nothing is locked in until we come back to you with a time and a price — for the call and for any parts. We would rather do that than have you clear a morning for a visit we have not agreed to yet.
Five things, and no surprises in any of them.
Written out because the surprises are what people actually dread about a repair, and every one of them can be headed off before the machine moves.
We come back with a time and a price
Not an automated confirmation. A person reads what you have written, works out whether it is an onsite call or a return to depot, and gives you both numbers before anything is booked.
We would rather quote before turning up than turn up and then quote. Metro is a $352 call-out with the first hour on site and the travel in it, and after that $132 a half hour — so ten minutes over costs half an hour, not a whole one. Simple repairs are usually sorted inside the hour you have already paid for.
Sydney we drive to ourselves, and so do Wollongong and the Central Coast — those two are $297 plus the driving rather than the metro $352. Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth are attended by a Zebra partner technician local to you, and Geelong by the Melbourne one, at the same rates — which is why there is one metro price rather than five.
Either way the visit is arranged in advance. Nobody turns up unannounced, and nobody is sent out before you have the price in writing.
Three business days, if the parts are here
That is the honest condition rather than a disclaimer. Where a part has to come in, we tell you the lead time before you send the machine or accept a quote — not after it is sitting on our bench and you are waiting.
Half of it is cleaning, not parts
A platen roller is the usual example. It looks finished, and most of the time it wants a proper clean rather than replacing — adhesive and paper dust build up until it stops gripping. It only gets replaced when it has gone hard, split or been cut, and those you can see.
So a part on the quote is not a part on the invoice. If cleaning fixes it, cleaning is what you are charged for.
We quote for three parts and often fit one
Printhead, platen roller, drive belt. Not because all three are needed, but because the fault you describe on the phone is not the whole story until the printer is open. Nobody mentions the labels were skipping — and then the belt turns out to be worn, and now it is a second phone call and a bigger number.
Quoting for all three means the price only ever goes down. We would rather you saw the worst case up front and paid less than it, than approve a tidy figure and get a revision.
What it costs, and two ways to pay nothing for a quote
Approve the repair and the quote costs nothing. An accepted quote covers labour, parts and return freight, so the number you approve is the number on the invoice. You never pay for the diagnosis and the fix.
Turn it down and there is a $132 minimum quote charge, plus $35 to ship the machine back to you. And if the answer is that the printer is finished, tell us to scrap it and there is nothing to pay at all — no quote charge, no freight.
That last one is deliberate. A customer who is told their machine is not worth fixing should not also get an invoice for being told.
| Inc GST | |
|---|---|
| Onsite call-out, metro Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. First hour on site, travel included. |
$352 |
| Onsite call-out, Geelong / Wollongong / Central Coast First hour on site. Cheaper than metro because the travel allowance is not in it — the driving is charged below instead. |
$297 |
| Driving, for those three There and back, in 30-minute blocks. Billed at what it actually took, not what was quoted. |
$154 per hour |
| Every extra half hour on site After the hour in the call-out. Half hours, so ten minutes over does not cost an hour. |
$132 |
| Parts Quoted before anything is fitted — see above. |
Quoted |
A real one, on the Central Coast a month ago, priced at what it would cost today. Two printers. Each took half an hour, so the hour on site was the hour already in the call-out. We had quoted four hours of driving because that is what the run can take.
It took two. So two is what was billed.
| Call-out, including the hour on site | $297 |
| Two printers, half an hour each | in the hour above |
| Driving, quoted at four hours | $616 |
| Driving, actually two hours | $308 |
| Quoted $913. Invoiced $605. | −$308 |
Nobody had to ring and ask for that. It is the same rule as the three parts above — quote the honest worst case, bill what actually happened, and the number only ever comes down.
Seven answers and we can quote it.
The seven marked fields are the ones we genuinely cannot work without. Everything else helps, and none of it is compulsory.
A preferred date is a preference, not a diary entry. No slot is held when this arrives, because a machine nobody has seen yet might need a part that is three days away. Tell us when suits and we will tell you what can actually be done.
Not sure it is worth repairing?
Sometimes the answer is no, and you will get that answer too. A machine we would not repair is one we will say so about — the trade is thirty-five years long and a bad repair costs more than a lost sale.