First aid for your PC

IT Clinics is a federal network of service centers for maintenance and repair of computer equipment such as PCs, laptops, tablet PCs, smartphones, office appliances, IPS, sound systems, and network equipment. The project was launched in 2007 based on the service department of MERLION, one of the largest IT distributors in Russia. In an interview to Zhazhda, Alexander Frolov, Director General of IT Clinics, told about the foundation and devolvement of this business.

Starting point

MERLION became the founder of its affiliate “IT Clinics” 10 years ago. We cannot say that a network of authorized service centers has come up out of nowhere. The MERLION’s structure included its own efficient service center which was reorganized into a chain due to rebranding.

The concept of the new project was based on the idea to organize a professional high-quality computer equipment service with the service quality and customer-oriented approach comparable to operations of professional medical doctors.

The company's founders wanted to get rid of a notorious "underground service" image in Russia by forming a network that would meet growing requirements of customers and current standards followed by manufacturers.

Alexander Fedorov: “When we started, IT Clinics had to face multiple challenges. We had to rework a lot of things. The repair record system and customer support system were in their infancy; we failed to find ready-made systems and had to develop everything from scratch. Now the situation has become stable, and we have achieved good results for 10 years. We opened over 80 service centers in 70 cities across Russia – from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. We managed to reduce the mean time of warranty repair: for example, in August 2017 the mean repair time for НР products was 5 working days. We substantially expanded our contract portfolio by signing contracts with world’s leading companies and some Russian manufacturers. Initial investments were quickly paid off, because out partners provided not only warranty repair, but also non-warranty repair.

Business specifics

The key advantage of IT Clinics is an ad hoc approach to each customer, even at the initial stage when we accept inoperative equipment for repair. The process of operation of any computer clinic (a service center) consists of several successive steps. At the first stage, our administrators accept inoperative units for repair and carefully put then in special boxes. Each box is labeled with a special bar-code, which is recorded to the unified system and helps trace the status and stages of repair that any unit passes through. You can trace the status of your laptop or tablet PC online. Just fill in the required fields in the request form displayed on the official site of a certain service center.

After inoperative equipment is accepted for repair, the owner’s personal data will be recorded for further contacts while a broken unit will be sent to storage to wait for diagnostics. Then this equipment will be sent from storage to qualified service engineers who shall identify main faults and prescribe a specific “course of treatment”. If you happen to visit repair rooms in our service center, you'll find out that they look like an operational theater in a real hospital. All surfaces are covered with a special antistatic coating; repair personnel use antistatic garments and chairs with the same coating. All these measures are intended to keep equipment intact and to protect against static voltage. Besides, specialists' workstations are fitted with state-of–the-art equipment.

After diagnostics, we inform equipment owners about any defects found and cost of repair. It is up to the customer to make a decision on repair. If the customer refuses to repair, the equipment will be return in its previous state, and the customer will have to pay a small amount of money for inspection and diagnostics. If the customer wants repair, the second major phase including repair works will start.

Service engineers thoroughly fix any faults found. It is worth mentioning that even insignificant components are replaced manually. For safety, personnel use a special antistatic wrist strap.

After meticulous work, the repaired item is sent for diagnostics again. If case diagnostics proves the item works properly, it will be repacked in a box and sent to the storage area for further return to its owner.

IT Clinics collaborates with the largest foreign and Russian electronics manufacturers such as Lenovo, HP, Dell, Digma, Mio and many other companies. Every year our service engineers pass certification for repair of above-mentioned products and other manufacturers’ products.

Alexander Fedorov: “It is difficult to answer what makes the franchise successful: MERLION’s support, our vendors, media interviews, and, of course, word-of-mouth marketing. In addition, we provide comfort franchise conditions: comfortable offices and repair rooms designed in our unique style, operations in compliance with QAS and vendors’ standards, royalty payments of 5 to 25 thousand rubes per month”.

On issues, future plans and formula for success

In his interview to Zhazhda, Alexander is plainly speaking of the issues, future pans and the formula for success of IT Clinics.

Alexander Fedorov: “It is not a secret that we failed to open 100 computer clinics until the end of 2009 as planned. Basically, because of the 2008 economic crisis: On the one hand, we did not lose in profit or in the amount of repairs (people bought less and repaired more); on the other hand, many service centers began to close as business owners left the market because of sales problems in related business. At the same time (and we keep improving this segments) we made the quality control and standard compliance more severe. These measures made insufficiently strong partners refuse to participate in our project. As a result, only strong market players remain our partners who meet all the industry standards and sustain not only their own positive brand image, but also the image of our service network.

Along with standard enlargement of our contract portfolio, we are developing the spare parts distribution to a larger extent. One of the latest achievements in this field – a complete service package for Lenovo and HP, plus distribution of DELL’s spare parts for fee-based repairs.

Easy formula for our success: “Diligence is the mother of success!”

IT Clinics: statistics and facts

Year of company’s foundation: 2007.

Franchise footprint: 80 service centers on 70 cities of Russia

Target customers: Warranty service – all brand users. Fee-based repairs – men and women, age: 35-55

Company’s staff: In 2008, the network included over 400 specialists. Now, it is difficult to count the number.

Average monthly income. For each service center, this figure depends on many factors such as urban population, service center location, premises (company’ property or rental), service engineers’ craftsmanship. The average amount ranges from 50,000 to 3 mln rubles.