RealTown's RealTalk

I received an e-mail from Emphasys Software that may explain what may have been prompting some of the comments here about the support, or lack thereof for Agent Office. While there are potentially some additional options becoming available, following is currently how support is being handled.

Annual tech-support currently costs $295/yr. With initial purchase of the software, or purchase of the upgrade, you get 30 days of "on boarding" support. That is to help you get set up.

Their policy for Tech-Support is to help you when something in the software is "broken". In other words, that is when something that is supposed to happen, does not, or when something that is not supposed to happen, does. They are not what I define in my Matrix as a "Help Desk". A "Help Desk" will walk you through "how to" do something, such as how to do a mail merge.

If you call for tech-support, the voice mail instructs you that if you do not currently have active tech support status (you've paid for it) then you are directed to a sales line where you may purchase it.

If you do not have support, and are leaving messages on the support line, they will not be returned. The volume of those calls alone would prevent paying customers from getting their calls returned in a timely manner.

I'm not making excuses for them here, but personally I'm giving them time to see how it all shakes out.

For a more detailed explanation of the "Tech-Support" versus "Help-Desk" philosophies, I've included that "Glossary Term" from my upcoming CRM Matrix.

Tech Support vs. Help Desk - Different vendors have different ideas of what Tech-Support means. What I call Tech-Support in this field is "If it's broke, we'll help you fix it". In other words, if their software is not working; it's not doing something it's supposed to do; or it is doing something it's not supposed to do, they will help you fix it. A different kind of support would be if you call and ask how to do a mail merge, Tech-Support will USUALLY refer you to a user's manual or training videos. What I call Help-Desk in this field is a policy whereby they will help you fix problems, but will also walk you through how to do something, as a normal part of their service. Why the two different policies? Revenue streams. Tech-support/Help-desk is one of, if not the biggest expense software vendors have. Web based products have an ongoing stream of income. They get paid thousands of dollars by thousands of people every month. That's many thousands of dollars every month, whether they get any new customers/users or not. That pays for a larger support staff. Desktop solutions on the other hand are paid only once, up front, when you purchase the product. They will then provide you with Tech-Support and/or Help-Desk support for anywhere from 30 days to 1 year. After that you must pay for it. What percentage of people pay for it after the 30 days or one year? Very few. this makes for a smaller support staff, longer response times, and a narrower scope of what they will help with. Were they to attempt to provide significantly more, they would simply end up going out of business. This is the primary reason for the two different policies. It makes sense, and if you're objective about it, it's also quite fair. The questions then become; if the product is reliable, and they have a good training tutorial library available, how much do you need in the way of support after the initial setup? Do they have a "per incident" fee for support? Might that be sufficient for relatively rare future needs?