For users of the TourCMS tour operator ecommerce platform
Need your input on charging for TourCMS support
Hi everyone - we need your help and guidance - I am thinking about changing how we charge for TourCMS support.
The current situation is that TourCMS support is free - that includes support via these forums, email based support and the occasional phone call / Skype call. This has proven to be a fantastic incentive for us to improve the overall usability of the manuals, the examples we have on the site and the system itself.
We average about 0-2 support questions per month from live customers. When you consider how complex the software needs to be in order to support all the permutations of different travel businesses we believe this is pretty good.
Questions tend to fall into 3 categories:
- Reports and documentation setup
- Web template changes / website integration
- How best to setup for a certain situation (which can lead to a development request)
Our proposed new support payment structure would be as follows:
* Free support via this forum (and www.SmallFishBigOcean.com for general travel ecommerce advice)
* A "small fee" (e.g. 20 GBP / 40 USD) per support request that you want us to fix on your account or your website (i.e. we could support your site as well, if you wish, and if it is powered by TourCMS)
* If it turns out to be a TourCMS bug or a development request (i.e. something that TourCMS doesn't do) then we would not charge the fee.
With our new credit card system (coming soon!) we will be holding your credit card details and could therefore charge you these fees without much inconvenience to you (i.e. you wouldn't have to fill in a long form each time you need help)
We would therefore expect that you will make more use of the forums (these ones) unless you really are stuck on something very specific to your situation.
Our mindset
One point I want to be fully clear on is we want to offer a free support service. But we are not able to offer a free support service that includes your websites as well. Somehow we need to draw a line between the two kinds of support that you may require.
We also want to ensure that we have all the right incentives to improve the software, the manuals and the setup examples. As soon as we generate revenue from support and selling you professional services we lose an incentive to reduce the flow of those questions. We need the current incredibly strong incentive to improve everything across the board. We also need your questions because through them we can see what needs improvement. We are in this together.
We want to provide a great support service (we believe we are pretty good already). By having an income from our support service it may provide a means for us to invest in additional support levels - for example weekend or overnight support.
By charging for support (which is discretionary spending) we could maintain our low TourCMS subscription fees (which is not discretionary for particular account sizes)
Alternatives
* Have a support package that could be purchased annually (in effect increase prices for TourCMS customers). But we don't want to be in a situation where you ask us for help and the first question we ask is "are you paying us for support". In effect we would be holding your business to ransom until you pay us.... which isn't exactly how we want to work with you all!
* Increase prices across the board - no - the prices are fine and scale nicely. We may do some tweaks around the edges though - in particular on numbers of bookings permitted on free accounts before you have to upgrade. More on that later.
Here is your opportunity - what do you think? The above idea is just an idea. What we end up doing will be mainly driven by the outcome of the discussion which hopefully you will join in on (below)
Thanks. Alex
The current situation is that TourCMS support is free - that includes support via these forums, email based support and the occasional phone call / Skype call. This has proven to be a fantastic incentive for us to improve the overall usability of the manuals, the examples we have on the site and the system itself.
We average about 0-2 support questions per month from live customers. When you consider how complex the software needs to be in order to support all the permutations of different travel businesses we believe this is pretty good.
Questions tend to fall into 3 categories:
- Reports and documentation setup
- Web template changes / website integration
- How best to setup for a certain situation (which can lead to a development request)
Our proposed new support payment structure would be as follows:
* Free support via this forum (and www.SmallFishBigOcean.com for general travel ecommerce advice)
* A "small fee" (e.g. 20 GBP / 40 USD) per support request that you want us to fix on your account or your website (i.e. we could support your site as well, if you wish, and if it is powered by TourCMS)
* If it turns out to be a TourCMS bug or a development request (i.e. something that TourCMS doesn't do) then we would not charge the fee.
With our new credit card system (coming soon!) we will be holding your credit card details and could therefore charge you these fees without much inconvenience to you (i.e. you wouldn't have to fill in a long form each time you need help)
We would therefore expect that you will make more use of the forums (these ones) unless you really are stuck on something very specific to your situation.
Our mindset
One point I want to be fully clear on is we want to offer a free support service. But we are not able to offer a free support service that includes your websites as well. Somehow we need to draw a line between the two kinds of support that you may require.
We also want to ensure that we have all the right incentives to improve the software, the manuals and the setup examples. As soon as we generate revenue from support and selling you professional services we lose an incentive to reduce the flow of those questions. We need the current incredibly strong incentive to improve everything across the board. We also need your questions because through them we can see what needs improvement. We are in this together.
We want to provide a great support service (we believe we are pretty good already). By having an income from our support service it may provide a means for us to invest in additional support levels - for example weekend or overnight support.
By charging for support (which is discretionary spending) we could maintain our low TourCMS subscription fees (which is not discretionary for particular account sizes)
Alternatives
* Have a support package that could be purchased annually (in effect increase prices for TourCMS customers). But we don't want to be in a situation where you ask us for help and the first question we ask is "are you paying us for support". In effect we would be holding your business to ransom until you pay us.... which isn't exactly how we want to work with you all!
* Increase prices across the board - no - the prices are fine and scale nicely. We may do some tweaks around the edges though - in particular on numbers of bookings permitted on free accounts before you have to upgrade. More on that later.
Here is your opportunity - what do you think? The above idea is just an idea. What we end up doing will be mainly driven by the outcome of the discussion which hopefully you will join in on (below)
Thanks. Alex
Views: 3
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on -
One comment back so far (via email)
"Hi this is fine, but I would like to see some of my previous issues resolved sometime too"
-
Permalink Reply by Actief in Tsjechie on -
Hi Alex,
Some charge for more complex questions sounds reasonable. However how to deal with suggestions for improvements to TourCMS (like the one I send per e-mail today)? Is that support too?
Nice weekend to all!
Regards, Luit
-
Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on
-
Hi Luit
The question you sent about balances would have been a good example of one that could have come into the forums here!
It would have taken us the same 5 minutes to answer (which we are happy to do) but it would benefit other people not just you. Other people may also say "ah - we are having that problem too - I think you should change how TourCMS works there".... This is why having basic support in the forums is much better than via email.... better for everyone I mean.
Best wishes. Alex
-
Permalink Reply by Actief in Tsjechie on
-
Hi Alex,
Clear, I will put the question on the forum in few minutes.
Regards Luit
-
Permalink Reply by Brad Lowe on -
Interesting dilemma. I have been in the IT game for 20+ years, mainly in outsourcing and application support so have seen a lot. Here are a few of my thoughts and experiences.
Everyone wants the best and most responsive service and no one wants to pay which is understandable but not sustainable. Also, TourCMS is not a benevolent fund: you need to make money and be sustainable so that you can remain in business and continue to provide a stable and reliable service without cutting corners or running the risk of going out of business (I am not suggesting this is the case now). The current prices are reasonable and not gouging, so there is not massive profit margins in there to rip anyone off by charging extra if an extra service is provided.
I have found it comes back to working out what people really NEED and charging accordingly for that - not over-servicing when not needed and leading to extra unnecessary costs, and not cutting things back that are of value to keep yourself from losing.
I can't say that personally I am keen on the idea of the regular costs going up (not significantly anyway - I understand that costs do go up over time) since the reasonable cost is one of the reasons TourCMS was on my shopping list in the first place, and it is something promoted by TourCMS itself as the pricing model that appeals to small and medium businesses. At present, I feel like I generally get what I pay for and I am fairly happy with that.
From my point of view, the forums are great for 90% of support queries because they are not time-critical. In almost all cases, a few days delay in a response is perfectly OK, and it usually needs a few iterations to clarify anyway so needs this input and perspective from others. I think "immediate" responses to blogs etc could be seen as over-servicing - nice to have, but not a necessity in all cases. Perhaps an expectation of a when a response can be made would be good if it cannot be made within 24 hours or so.
The 1% of times when you need an immediate response (like in a major situation if TourCMS is down) is something that is quite important since my business and others depend on it with the online booking engine that is the face of our business to the world. We can lose quite a bit of money in lost bookings just because we cannot see availability on the system if it is down. I think prioritising some of the support to be able to respond quickly in a crisis is important. I see this as part of the current service, but could perhaps be offset by "reducing the responsiveness" on the forum queries.
The third category is defect fixes. I think that these need to be kept as a high priority, and are not really an extra charge service as they are part of the software asset, and can detract from the service usefulness of the product. In my view, fixing defects that are impacting our live customers is more important than responding to the forums immediately. You could perhaps consider them being treated as an enhancement if it is fairly specialised and someone really needs to bring the priority for the fix up the list.
The fourth category is more consulting and specialised tailoring and configuration. I think that the consulting that is specific to someones website is probably fair enough to be charged extra - also depending on the turnaround time and the actual total amount of time involved. This is what big software providers all do!
The fifth category is enhancements. If these are specifically for one client or one website with no general applicability, then I guess it is a business decision as to whether this is charged separately or swallowed in the interest of securing a new client. If the features are generally applicable and enhance the quality of the TourCMS product, as many of them do, then the same situation exists of charging for the changes, or swallowing them in the increased asset value of the software. I might suggest a third option here which is sharing the costs. But beware of charging for enhancements - who owns the intellectual property if the work is paid for by the client? I suspect TourCMS needs to retain all ip, perhaps issuing a general right to use to that client, but needs cheap rates to justify this.
Anyway, hope these thoughts are helpful.
Brad
www.activitytours.com.au
-
Permalink Reply by Neil Lapping on -
Hi Alex,
As a TourCMS user it imperitive that you have a strong business model as my business depends on your system. Currently I beleive that the system offers incredible value for money and as I have said numerous times I beleive that it is too cheap/you offer too much at a given price level.
I am sure that your clients follow the 80:20 rule with regards support and in my opinion as a user you should pay for services based on how much you use them.
I would have thought that the vast majority of support queries arise when users first sign up for the service and many are probably on free accounts at this stage. Why don't you charge an initial signup/support fee for new users as this is when they will probably take up support services? I would think that every new user will need some level of support and if you had a set account setup fee based on a predetermined level of help this would get people up and running and minimise the future support queries. This means that low users/free trial users are not taking up valuable development/support resources.
Most support queries are answered comprehensively through the forums and are neither time sensitive or user specific so therefore would take load off your resources.
If it was a website/account specific support request further down the line I would go ahead and charge for it. I would be happy to pay for the professional advice/service.
I would be very reluctant to sign up for annual support.
I hope this helps - basically I would be happy with the system you propose.
Cheers
Neil
-
Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on
-
Thanks everyone for your feedback on this thread
We made some very minor adjustments to our pricing as a result of this conversation. Most people won't notice a difference at all.
See the announcement
© 2012 Created by TourCMS team.
