Frequently Asked Questions
What are your hours, when can I come to your store?
Come by between 10 AM to 8 PM on the weekdays anytime for a free consultation. Our bench techs & computer engineers will diagnose the issue with your machine and give you all of your options. We do not own a store, we work out of a private workshop, so please read the directions so you can find us.
Why are you so hard to find? I have to walk through a freight entrance, ring a buzzer, and come into a basement?
We are not primarily a consumer repair shop. Most of our customers are businesses. Our prices are so low that it makes more sense to give a device to us for repair, then pay to hire & train employees & source parts. They charge a customer $350-$400, pay us $240 to perform the repair, and give the machine back to the customer. With this model, we did not require a storefront. PC repair shops & cellphone stores made up a large percentage of our customers. Having more space to perform repairs & house our supply company was the priority. As servicing the end customer was not our primary business, we did not have a space set up for it. However, we do want to offer these services to the general public, so you can benefit from the turnaround time & price that comes from efficient labor & parts direct from the manufacturer.
When you come here, you're coming to the repair source, and bypassing the middlemen.
Free housecalls? How does that work?
Anywhere in the five boroughs of NYC, for eligible machines and repairs, you can have your device repaired at your home of office. There are limitations: Housecalls are not available on Unibody Models, Macbook Airs, or water damage, as these must be repaired in my workshop.
How is service this fast attainable?
Firstly, we cut down what we'll work on, so we don't wind up with a bench filled with machines that will take time to diagnose & order parts for. Your machine is never on the back burner. The by appointment business structure, combined with a streamlined & narrow scope of repairs means as soon as you become a customer, your machine is the only priority until it is done. Another is not moved onto until yours is completed.
Secondly, all parts necessary are stocked. We don't have to order a part in order to perform your repair. So the second you decide you'd like to utilize a service, we're ready.
This is how same day service is attainable on mail orders, 20 minute LCD replacement is possible on an A1226 Macbook Pro, and 2 hour glass replacement is possible on an A1278 Macbook.
How in God's name is this so cheap?
These services aren't cheap. A better term would be "affordable by contrast." Other repair centers base pricing on high overhead. One large form of overhead is ordering parts 1 at a time. They must deal with faulty parts, pay expedited shipping rates to get them there in a reasonable timeframe, and pay extreme markups. Our supply company sells to us at cost, and gets parts direct from the manufacturer.
The scope of repairs offered here is also very narrow, which allows the time to research what the real market rate for a part is. By narrowing the scope of repairs offered, superior prices and turnaround times than many other services are attainable.
Certain competitors are paying 20%-40% more for the same parts at the same quality level due to lack of a structured, aggressive parts sourcing system.
Lastly, we do not employ unnecessary staff. You may be used to walking into a store with 4-10 people. In these cases, most of the people are looking for guidance from 1 or 2 senior techs. We do not employ technicians that cannot perform every service offered by themselves. Less employees translates to lower overhead, which means lower prices for equally experienced labor.
How do I schedule an appointment? Do I need an appointment?
Appointments are only necessary on weekends, and for house call service. During the weekday, anytime between 10 AM to 8 PM, no appointment is necessary. Call, ask any questions you need, let the representative know what times and locations would work best for you and everything possible will be done to accommodate you.
I can't make my appointment. Can I reschedule?
This depends. Did you provide notice? If so, we're happy to reschedule. Did you provide no notice, no-call/no-show, or allow a technician to show up at your home or office only to not find you? In that case, you've wasted either my or my assistant's time, and we have no patience for this.
The situation we share no sympathy towards, is the next question.
I didn't call, didn't email, and missed my appointment. Can we reschedule?
No.
Whether you’re meeting with myself or my assistant, or anyone else who has done part time work here, I make sure they all share the same attribute of strong principles. If someone wastes their time(or mine) by not being at their home address at the appointed time, I do not ask them to show up again for this person. At The Rossmann Group, principles are valued over money.
Why haven't I heard back from you yet, and how can I reach you instantly?
When times are busy, phone calls take priority. I can talk and work, but I can’t type and work. Calling and speaking to a representative, or leaving a message if none is available is your best bet.
Another way to expedite the process is to call from the number you wish to be called back on. It sounds silly, but when myself or an associate is carrying a large box of parts, and a tool bag through Broadway and 49th st, it is barely possible to grab the phone to tell it to play a message, much less call back. We try to call back ASAP – if either of us can hit a single button on the voicemail app to call you back, we will, but taking down a number in the middle of the overcrowded Manhattan street while carrying 48 lbs of parts and tools is not possible. If you need to be called back immediately, please call from the # you wish to be called back from, as neither of us is always in a situation where we can stop what we’re doing to take down a number.
Lastly, if you called about something unrelated to something on this site, it is likely you won’t hear a call back. This includes:
a) unsolicited offers from suppliers
b) requests for repairs not listed here(real life example: can you fix the remote for my car door)
c) requests for accessories, or anything unrelated to the core purpose of this website, being LCD replacement on portable devices
If you are looking for the owner’s assistance in maintaining recording studio equipment, you know where to find me (and it’s not through this webpage).
What are your warranty terms?
For LCD screen replacements, one year. Barring physical damage, you'll get a new one for free. For water damage, 3 months. If your machine cannot be fixed, you get the full amount back. If it can be fixed, you do not pay again. This warranty has never been used.
What makes your Unibody Macbook Screen Repair better than everyone else's?
A clean room!
Look up at your lamp. See the particles moving around? That's you. Most dust is comprised of skin cells shedding off your body. Disgusting, isn't it? It's even nastier when it's behind your screen.
Unibody Macbooks have glass over the LCD. Applying this glass to the frame, over the LCD, in a regular room allows all this garbage to get behind your screen.
The room used to repair Unibody machines is very small. The ventilation system has numerous carbon prefilters in its path, the double doors keep most air from coming in. After air’s gotten in, it goes through two filters providing 800 sq ft/minute of HEPA filtering, and other treatment keeps humidity under 15% at all times. This is no comparison to the average apartment or office.
Take your machine elsewhere, open up a window that extends the entire screen, especially the edges, that is bright white. If it wasn’t done by Rossmann, enjoy the dust!
Why won't you replace my RAM, tell me why my computer is slow, setup my Wi-Fi network, remove my viruses, update my machine, set IT policies on my BlackBerry or any of that other stuff every regular computer shop does?
The concept behind The Rossmann Group was to fill a specific void of computer shops weren’t handling well, the definition of well being a repair done quickly, with pretested quality parts that are on hand with a very fast turnaround time.
If I spend the whole day running around replacing RAM and spending the 3-5 hours necessary to remove your virus properly and the 45 minutes to setup a neat home network, then I’ll be forced to have 5 hour turnarounds on the repairs I presently finish in ten minutes. Every customer handled by The Rossmann Group, whether by myself or another associate receives undivided, priority attention. The way this is done is by avoiding things that many other shops are already setup to handle efficiently.
The Rossmann Group in no way aims to be a one stop shop for everything. It's not that we don’t know how to handle it, it's that it takes away from handling everything else.
I'm going to use someone who says he can do it for $29 instead.
Best of luck to you. Most of these places aren't real businesses, or are real businesses staffed by people who are inexperienced and learn from by practicing on your equipment, or learn off youtube. It's a great source of information, but watching youtube doesn't make one a tech. It makes them someone who knows how to follow the instructions given to them off a video. The subtleties of proper workmanship and repair cannot be learned through a video, but only through extensive hands-on experience after repairing a particular device over and over again. When your machine has another problem(these are all physically damaged, after all), and other things are wrong, what is the improperly trained and inexperienced person going to do? What makes me any better? I worked on difficult to service electronics like this Neve rack in broadcast facilities. A lot of the gear I worked on was over 30 years old, and used in mission critical environments. One second of downtime is unacceptable as it will render a recording useless. If one thinks opening a slightly abused 2 year old laptop is difficult, imagine working on a 55 year old Pultec equalizer – the parts are practically turning to dust as you touch them! The level of workmanship necessary to keep these from failing again and to successfully get it back in service is considerably higher than the level of workmanship necessary to get a laptop back together. Rest assured your machine won't be leaving with missing screws, broken pieces, or misaligned parts. I know better.
I've called you to negotiate payment or emailed with concerns on price and you’ve hung up on me, and won't take my calls, were rude, or won't get back to me. How come??
There is only one circumstance where this ever occurs: when dealing with a lowballer. If you've called, received a price quote, and asked if someone would do it for less, you're not getting anything done here. Don't bother calling back or trying to fix this after the fact, your name and number has been recorded for future blacklisting.
I showed up at your workshop unannounced and I can't find you. How come??
You may have shown up outside regular office hours, of 10 AM to 8 PM on a weekday. There will alwyas be an engineer or engineer's assistan will be happy to take your machine and provide you paperwork, and give you exact timing on when to expect your machine back for repair.
I've called you and I get no answer in the middle of the day. Why do I get your voice-mail?
I perform free housecalls using the MTA subway system, so calls are forwarded to a cellular phone. Sometimes, there is no cellphone service. All calls are returned the moment they can be. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible, or else I won't even see that you called.
Is this a one man show or is there something to the "Group"?
I, Louis Rossmann, am the one you are likely to speak to on the phone, and do perform most of the repairs, outsourcing certain repairs and reception services when busy to trusted colleagues. Think "Murphy Group" on Entourage. He does have the elderly receptionist out front, but for the most part, it's just him. Same here. I have a bookkeeper, an assistant, and a computer engineer when things get busy, but for the most part; it's just me.
Lastly, why should I use The Rossmann Group?
As stated above, I learned how to service electronics the old fashioned way – an apprenticeship at a top class facility. I do house calls where you can see what I do every step of the way. When you call, you'll hear the person who's doing the job with the model information available. You can rest assured the part being put in your machine comes from a reputable supplier I offer a very narrow scope of repair services in order to be able to offer the best turnaround time, best prices, best customer service and parts for every device serviced, and we never act with less than admiral integrity. It's casual professionalism at its best, with basic admirable values trumping aggressive sales and shoddy workmanship.
