Re: [cobalt-users] Watch out for Sun support

["Steve Werby" <steve-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<elmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>
> Have you ever really sat down and figured out what it costs
> to provide quality support services on a scale such as that faced by
> Cobalt?
</snip>

Brent, I know you asked Thom specifically, but I thought I'd chime in.  I
think the customers that think the fee is outrageous have a microscopic view
of what's involved or have had a bad experience with Cobalt support, but
that's just speculation.  Surely $95 is excessive for those calls that are 5
minutes long, but that's probably not the typical call.  And the fact that
some of the calls are the result of buggy software Cobalt built and some of
the calls could potentially be considered informative and valuable from
Cobalt's perspective shouldn't dictate what the fee is.

> Worse yet, perhaps, the agents and the equipment they need
> to do their jobs has to be there even if nobody is calling.

Ah, that's the big one.  Call volumes and patterns are not going to be
constant over the course of a day, though it's likely there are some
somewhat predictable peaks and valleys.  I'm sure Cobalt has put quite a lot
of thought into proper staffing in order to minimize customer wait time,
staff idle time and do so in such a way that results in a cost/pricing
combo. that's as reasonable as possible for both Cobalt and its clients.
Notice I didn't say that they have executed this well since I have no
insights, but when you think about office politics, the availability of good
IT folks and the likelihood that most IT folks don't want to work a 4 hour
shift and strange hours and everything else involved IT customer support has
to be very difficult to pull off right and is never going to be cheap.  I
know some Cobalt customers have publicly complained that Cobalt professional
services charges $200 per hour, but the same problems are involved and
though I've stated in the past that it's reasonable for small Cobalt
customers to think $200 an hour is excessive, I really don't think it's
unreasonable.

--
Steve Werby
President, Befriend Internet Services LLC
http://www.befriend.com/