HELP: What's It Worth?

[wardmundy]

We'll call this a hypothetical even though it's really not. You've installed a system at a remote site, and it's limping along. So he calls some support organization, and they reportedly make things worse, much worse. Now it's 1 a.m. in the morning on Easter Weekend, and you'd like some PIAF Tier 1 support so that your customer doesn't come into work Monday morning with a dead phone system.

No one responded to this individual until this morning, and my first question was what would this level of support be worth to you. Essentially, the person only wanted help when, according to him, everyone else had royally f*cked up the server. We wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole, but...

Let's throw this out for comment on what such an on-call level of support for this type of problem would be worth to you looking at it from both sides of the fence. Please also indicate if you'd be willing to put your cellphone number in the support pool AND leave it on all night long every night of the year.

If I can stop laughing, I'll publish the response I received in a few days. This should be fun.

 

[tbrummell]

When I worked support for one of the top 5 PBX manufacturers in North America we charged a minimum of $1500 for weekend support, double time if it was a holiday.
This was direct support to the end user, typically large institutions/hotels/businesses (usually 2000 users +). Tech Support for field technicians was done by a different group and they only supported licensed tech's, which was agreed to in a support contract for the dealer. No idea how much that was worth.

 

[alauppe]

I work for Anteil, Inc. in Harrisburg PA. We don't charge anything extra for after hours / emergency support. On the surface it may seem foolish, but it has brought on more customers to our regular maintenance program than anything else we've done, I think.

There are two perspectives:
A. What is my time worth?
B. What is a customer worth?

On a holiday weekend, A tends to run the show, but the reality is that a regular customer is usually worth more than a single emergency support effort, even after hours on a holiday weekend.

My $0.02.

 

[vcallaway]

Tough one for me because my phone is on 24x7. My niche is trucking companies and they work 24x7.

It was only a few weeks ago I received a call late on a Saturday as I was packing the motorhome to leave town for a week. Trucking company moved offices that morning and the antique phone system they had died in the move. They could not get their internet connection working (Clearwire wireless) and their windows server crashed.

I got their internet up, loaned them a laptop with PIAF purple installed and my 2 spare Aastra 57i's. Got their phone company to forward their numbers to new callcentric number.

My vacation was postponed. The weekend bill was a grand. They were thrilled that they were up and running monday morning. They also have a new phone system and will be a long term client.

I always answer my phone.

 

[wardmundy]

Doing it for a customer certainly makes lots of sense. I slept with a phone by the bed for 25 years. This was actually support for a dealer (using PIAF for Free) that was already billing the customer through the nose and had looked elsewhere for dealer support until things came unraveled, of course.

 

[paulhuynh]

I do 24x7 for my client as well, it all about helping client whom in need. Phone are blood line for most business.

 

[alauppe]

Ward,

Support isn't really in your model is it. Thats the big difference between my experience and yours.

Hrmm.

I suppose, in your situation, I might have asked the dealer up front what he expected to pay for that level of support. Unfortunately you're in a sticky place now that the work is already done. Do you have a good relationship with the Dealer?

 

[tbrummell]

To make that weekend charge worse, many many businesses use the downtime of a holiday weekend to do upgrades. Speaking of which, I'm in the middle of a 4 server cluster upgrade myself right now. Finders crossed, 1 server complete and back up taking calls, 2nd server under way, 3 & 4 waiting patiently for their turn.

 

[wardmundy]

Ward,

Support isn't really in your model is it. Thats the big difference between my experience and yours.

Hrmm.

Huh? Can't do enough for you, can we? We'd never heard from this "dealer" until all hell broke loose. But to answer your question, support is in our model. It's called the forums and the wiki and Nerd Vittles. Then there are the half dozen Asterisk security updates this year not to mention a gazillion Google Voice fixes. And, it's all been FREE, just like PBX in a Flash. Just how much free support do you provide in your model?? My guess would be the response goes something like this...

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

If you want 24x7 support for your PIAF system, we'll find you someone that can do it... just not starting in the middle of the night on Easter weekend for one hour. And, it won't be FREE.

 

[The Deacon]

I've managed several networks in my career, and have seen WAAAAY too many service issues erupt on long weekends and holidays...

I wouldn't have managed (or installed) any of those networks without having a support contract with Cisco (or whom ever's gear I was using) without having counter to counter service and a 4 hour service window if I didn't think it was important.

I wouldn't install technology without knowing that "shit happens" when you least expect it and would expect to pay for service on nights/weekends/holidays.

In the past, I've always charged a monthly maintenance / support fee. The fee doesn't really cover anything other than getting access to me on nights / weekends / holidays.

If I had a client call me to work nights/weekends/holidays, then the meter started running once I left the house, or VPN'ed in to their system. And they knew that up front.

I think, that in this case, if you're installing PIAF and you're charging customers for the service and you can't fix the problem; why are you selling it in the first place? If you are selling it and you can't fix it, you need to accept the fact that nights / weekends / holiday support is not going to be cheap. Period.

It's really comes back to the designer's triangle ("Good/Fast/Cheap - Pick two.")

Just my $0.02

 

[wardmundy]

Let me try one more time. I was reporting what the person told us in a 1:01 a.m. message last night. I'm not vouching for what his problem is or isn't or whether he got good, bad, or ANY support from the support organization that he reportedly called for support. I have forwarded the guy's email as well as his phone number to the support organization in question. At least at some point in the past he was that organization's customer. So one would hope they follow up. But that's their call to make. He's never had any business relationship with us at all. My purpose in documenting what happened was to get some feedback on how reported incidents like this should be handled and at what cost. My heartfelt apology for mentioning the support organization by name until they have had an opportunity to investigate.

 

[vcallaway]

I think I'm a big confused as to what exactly is going on here. Tell me if this is it:

Someone installed a PIAF system and it has a problem. They try to call someone they have a support agreement with and they make it worse. When that fails they call you and expect you to fix it for free?

Is that what is going on here?

 

[wardmundy]

It wasn't a phone call, or they would have gotten our voicemail system at 1 in the morning. But that is essentially what the person indicated in the 3 emails we received in the middle of the night last night. Not sure whether there was a support agreement in place or not. It's definitely a NOT in the eyes of the support organization. According to them, they haven't heard from this guy in many, many months. There was an offer to pay for our support although we never got past that... because we didn't find out about it until after daybreak.

 

[atsak]

If I can stop laughing, I'll publish the response I received in a few days. This should be fun.

I suppose an ad-hoc "please help me OMG" kind of call would be double my tier 3 on site rate of $125/hr, plus travel / expenses if appropriate.

Mind you I'm not really tier 3 for PIAF; that kind of service I only offer for Windows world where I am qualified.

I wouldn't even have my phone available for less than $500 / month though.

 

[TheShniz]

Well, it sounds like you've either got a bad vendor or a bad customer... could be either, would need more info. Regardless, it's not my business model to be a support organization in the pure sense (what you're asking), so I have to agree w/ Deacon on this. Because I'm not the target market, I don't really have an answer for you. Just to say, that I've seen too many 'vendors' which really create a ton of problems for customers *and* 'the rest of us' alike... but, I've also seen too many customers create a ton of problems to just start blaming the vendor without more info (is why you don't give end users the keys to the kingdom, or you have a failover). I can appreciate your question, but sorry.

 

[Tekmon]

If one charges a fee for service at a fair, sometimes more than fair, it can attract customers. Be sure to charge fairly for all the intellectual time, travel not performed on site. Get your .02 cents worth.

 

[jmullinix]

I sleep with a phone beside my bed. My regular customer's know how to make that phone ring. I also provide support for several members of these forums. That works well for me and them. They provide the installation and I provide the backend configuration on the more complicated dial plan issues.

If you are going to sell this stuff, you need to keep a spare, ready to go phone server in your shop and a spare TDM card, if your customers use them. We just dealt with lightning strike on Thursday. The damage happened on Tuesday, the client called me on Wednesday afternoon and we replaced the phone system on Thursday morning. We would have replaced it on Wednesday, but the client did not want to stay late that night due to Wednesday's weather around here (we lost whole towns to tornados).

The end user that goes down at 1 am on Easter morning and doesn't have anyone to call is a curious situation, and there is probably more to that story. If you have a prior business relationship with me, feel free to wake me up at 1 am any morning. If you don't have a business relationship with me, make a large deposit to my paypal account, then call me at 1 am.

My $.02 worth.