Technical support - causes and effect

    It so happened that I am closely connected with the development of new and support for the existing Internet projects of the company in which I work, and I am also responsible for everything related to technical issues. I read Habr for a long time, but today for some reason I so wanted to write about what has been haunting me for so long.
    When it was just the beginning, the first customers were happy and any call from them seemed so long-awaited that they wanted to immediately satisfy all
    their Wishlist, to receive a flattering response, thus tickling self-esteem and receiving a lot of positive emotions. Then I did not suspect that customer calls and little requests from them would seem like hell to me and I would be afraid to look at the phone, wake up in horror in the morning from the ringtone that was heard and change it every two weeks.
    Soon, the lion's share of my time began to be eaten up by people who thought that ordering a site, all questions on it would be resolved immediately, because they had already paid for its work. Of course, it was foolish not to stipulate all the nuances of subsequent support, but if I knew where to fall, I would lay straws.
    What did this lead to?

    As a result, a year later:
    • many customers who paid for a one-time creation, paid only for hosting and thought that everything was included
    • due to the large number of calls with requests and information about errors, some of them were “lost” and there were repeated calls (yes, the calls did not always make me work, it was not always possible to record the request)
    • some customers only in a month or two after creation bother to go to the site for the first time and find some typo there. If they had done this before the completion of the project, everything would have been fine, but it seems to be bad on our part, and there’s nothing to take money for, but there’s no time to solve the problem.
    • always, besides the current work, there were dozens of frozen fixes that were difficult to “urgently” insert into the work schedule

    Thoughts were constantly busy: so as not to forget to do something, and even on time; new customers need to behave differently; Need to resolve issues with technical support for existing customers; the client should always be right, therefore all changes in cooperation should be presented in a pleasant form for him.
    As a result, I decided to compile statistics for all customers who, with enviable regularity, wished me a good morning and sometimes good night. And he began work on each of the points:
    • determined the average amount of work for each of them
    • I calculated the cost of an hour of work for one person
    • from the previous two points received the cost of customer technical support, added a margin of 30-100% (depending on solvency), rounded the amount
    • at the next extra urgent request, in order to dilute the bitter pill of paid technical support, I inform you that since it is very urgent, I will definitely do it right away, but next time we will solve the problem on a paid basis, and we will discuss the conditions at the first call.


    Now the most interesting thing for me is a discussion of the terms of paid technical support and an argumentation of its necessity. I offer several options for consideration:
    1. Monthly paid technical support. Payment is made monthly, you can call, ask how are you, ask to make “the letters on the right in the column are bigger”, consult on any issue related to our activities. Plus - additional permanent income from those customers who can take 1-2 hours every six months, which are paid in any case.
    2. One-time support. Any change / addition is paid on the basis of the appeal hourly. In principle, any wishes are accepted, because the work will be paid.
    3. Global changes do not relate to technical support: adding a section to the site, changing the design, etc. questions relate to additional work and are paid separately under a separate contract.


    As arguments about the need for technical support, I use:
    1. Speed ​​of response to any request. At a minimum, the presence of an error will be checked as quickly as possible and a verdict will be issued: deadlines, possible problems.
    2. Any work should be paid, especially if you need a high-quality result, and not the go-ahead, what you did, check for yourself, because it's too lazy to do it.

    So far this process continues, but the result has surpassed itself. Many completely agree to such conditions, but did not pay, because no one spoke to them about this. Those who do not want to pay are most likely ready to put up with shortcomings that could be eliminated, but there is no money for this. Such companies are likely to resort to one-time paid changes in the future, which I really hope.
    For myself, over the past year I have made many conclusions:
    • kindness and naivety are the worst enemies of successful business (this does not mean that you need to be evil and cynical :))));
    • the lack of economic education and management skills makes itself felt (reading books and articles helps);
    • I’ll try to introduce binding contracts for technical support with all old and new customers, as well as write out acts of work performed (or maybe I won’t get a bunch of papers);
    • to collect and classify the main reasons for the appeal of our customers, eliminate them and try to prevent them in the future.


    All with the upcoming holidays, and I want to be sure next year to become not only a year older, but more experienced and happier))

    PS And what do you offer your customers in terms of technical support and how do you argue its need?

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