Teaching Computers

I find that I am spending more and more time teaching people about their computers. They read an article in the paper on sending your photo's via e-mail, or about a new service (LinkedIn) or want to know about the hottest sites and they call me. Sometimes we just chat about their idea, others it turns in to a 3 or 4 hour consulting gig. I do not mind the calls, as a matter of fact I enjoy them but I do not like hearing about how my customers asked a question of some other tech only to be told that "It is not part of my call?". How can you tell a customer that you will not answer a simple question? If you are at a customers house doing a cleanup of a computer you are usually sitting waiting on a program to run or going through and deleting files or programs. Neither of which should require all your attention. So why not answer the customers questions or show them how to insert a picture into an e-mail? You are on site already, sitting there waiting and not currently busy, right? So answer their questions! Now I am not talking about business's but about the home user who is sitting next to you, they are curious and want to learn more. To my mind the more they learn the better customer they are. If they have read that adding more memory to their computer will speed things up, they will call me to ask. I have a charge for the phone call and another charge to actually go install the memory. Win, win, right? I make more money, make my customers happy and they get a faster computer, all because I will answer their questions and not make it into a big technical question. I have more follow up business than allot of techs in my area (I asked) and I feel it is because I take the time to answer a question.