Skillbank offers economical PC maintenance and IT support to
small local businesses, charities and private individuals.
Our motto "Advice is free" means we can give clients answers to simple questions at no charge.
Skillbank is based near Rowlands Gill, to the West of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
Maintenance and Repair
Clients frequently need prompt help with issues such as virus or spyware infections (malware). We aim to provide support rapidly and efficiently to minimise disruption.
Your hardware can also need maintenance - from a simple clean-up to replacing parts. Also after a period of use the software needs checking, to ensure its effectiveness and validity. In both cases early intervention will save problems in future.
Some clients find it an advantage to have planned maintenance, and we can arrange regular visits to test and clean your system hardware and software, and ensure your computers are virus free and backups working effectively.
IT Support
Having a strategy for disaster recovery is important, as sooner or later your PC WILL run into problems. We can help you ensure your PC is protected from issues such as a virus infection or component failure. We can also help with day-to-day issues such as printing.
Your broadband connection may be unreliable or slow, and we can often help to resolve those issues.
We can also advise on on-line security, and offer some alternatives for secure deletion of your data if you are disposing of equipment.
Data retrieval is another of our specialties: from transferring data to a new drive or pc, or recovering data from a failed drive, we have a dedicated server that supports these activities.
As fully qualified and experienced trainers we can offer training in the use of Windows and standard applications, and resolving issues with peripheral devices (printers, scanners etc) or networks and internet access.
At skillbank.co.uk we are always happy to offer limited advice to existing clients free of charge.
Why not check the "advice" and "links" pages to see whether your questions are answered there?
Our work for charity
skillbank.co.uk supports Marie Curie and Salvation Army charities; normally a large percentage of our profits is donated, but in addition we refurbish and sell donated equipment. 100% of the income from this (after deduction of the cost of any replacement parts etc) goes directly to the charity and is boosted by gift aid.
So if you have an unwanted PC or laptop - even if its not working - please consider donating it for us to sell. All donated equipment has previous users files securely deleted; and I can even offer data recovery from the equipment if necessary.
However if its 20 years old, powered by gas or needs new valves we wont be able to accept it!
Service agreement, service record, warranty and data protection
When we accept an item for repair we will ask you to complete and sign a service agreement and data protection consent form; if you are bringing an item for repair you may wish to download this and bring the form with you.
Service agreement.pdf
On completion of a repair you will receive a printed (or electronic) copy of a record of the work done. You can see an example here. Service_record.pdf
We provide a 90 day limited warranty on items supplied by us, and repairs we undertake. Our liability is in all cases limited to the price you paid for those goods or services, and does not cover misuse. If you have bought an item from us you may access the terms of the limited warranty here.
Limited warranty on services and purchases
Data protection
The data we hold with your permission is outlined here. At any time you may request a copy or that we delete the data, but in that case we will not be able to provide further help based on that information.