How much to charge for 24/7 support ?

dsaitodsaito Member Posts: 4
edited 2001-04-27 in Navision Financials
Any of you solution centers charge 24/7 support ?
Do you charge a flat monthly rate ? What do you charge ?
I have no idea what people are charging for this and what would be a fair rate.

Comments

  • mfabianmfabian Member Posts: 187
    I would not easily agree to a flat rate!!!
    The reason is obvious: The user(s) will call you all the time and for everything. Having 10 users like that, you'd get a phonecall every 5 minutes and would therefore be absorbed to do any other work. However, I would accept a flat rate under the following circumstances:
    1) if the flat rate for these 10 users is high enough to pay one full-time hotline supporter then it might be ok.
    2) It's an old customer who you know well, who has well trained users and an internal super-user who is able to solve most of the end-user problems himselfes. Usually in this case only the super-user is allowed to call you if he cannot solve the problem.


    Usually support is being charged on an hourly basis with 15 Minutes minimum charge for every call.

    Personally I tend to "educate" my users to e-mail their problems rather than calling. This has the advantage that they have to start thinking and to put their problems into structured sentences which is not always the case if they are talking. ("How should I know what I think before I hear what I say?")
    Secondly it's YOU who decides when to answer support questions so you are not being interrupted so frequently. And third you have a good documentation about all support issues.

    Another interesting method has (or had 10 years ago) Hewlett Packard: The first person who takes the phone only understands the problem to the extend to connect the customer to the right specialist. But before doing so, he asks the customer about the importance of his problem:
    a) if the problem should be solved within a week, the cost is 80 per hour
    b) if the problem should be solved within a day, the cost is 150/hour
    c) if he wants to have the expert on the line immediately the cost is 300/hour
    (the figures are invented by me but you get the idea.)




    [This message has been edited by fabian (edited 27-04-2001).]
    With best regards from Switzerland

    Marcus Fabian
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