| Q: What do your support agreements cover? |
| A: We provide support on anything that you would expect to see on a typical network. This includes servers, workstations, operating systems and applications, printers, routers, switches, hubs, network infrastructure, Internet connections, firewalls… In a nutshell - if anything goes wrong on your network, we would be your first point of contact. |
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| Q: Do you provide hardware maintenance? |
| A: No. If we investigate a problem that turns out to be caused by faulty hardware, we will try and secure replacement parts and install them for you. Most companies these days buy hardware with 3-year warranties, so it's already covered. After this period, replacing parts as needed is a lot more cost effective. |
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| Q: Do you supply hardware or software? |
| A: We can supply any hardware, software or licenses you require. We often get discounted prices on these, and we pass that saving on to you. If you prefer to buy your hardware from somewhere else, that's OK too. |
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| Q: How do you bill customers for your support? |
A: We have two basic service schemes: ad-hoc and agreement-based.
Ad-hoc : Smaller customers prefer to use us only when they have a problem with their computers. This approach has the advantage of being very straightforward, but you do not get the advantage of our discounted pre-pay rates or the free telephone support. At the end of the engineer visit the customer makes his/her payment by cheque and we issue an invoice same day.
Agreement : Customers can also sign a maintenance agreement with us and get free telephone support; scheduled engineer visits and discounted rates on pre-paid services. If you need more support than your agreement provides, we are happy to provide it for an additional hourly charge. All customers who sign a maintenance agreement with us get billed at the start of each calendar month. The invoice will include details of every support incident, the agreed pre-payment sum for the next month and charges for any additional services used during the last billing period. |
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| Q: What is the minimum term of a support agreement? |
| A: We believe that a happy customer is a free customer. If at any time you feel that your current support agreement with us does not suit your needs, you are free to cancel it at any time by giving us one month's written notice. |
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| Q: How do you respond to problems? |
| A: We set up remote links to all of our customers' sites using a VPN link. This enables us to control servers and other critical network components quickly, so that we can respond to problems immediately. A lot of problems can be fixed within minutes, but if we cannot resolve a problem remotely we will go onsite. |
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| Q: What if the problem is not resolved even after an engineer's visit? |
| A: In the unlikely event of us failing to resolve an issue to customer's satisfaction, our no-fix-no fee policy applies. Click here for more details. |
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| Q: What are your standard support charges? |
| A: Site support is provided at hourly rates, with minimum charge of £50 (this includes site visit charge and 1 hour, thereafter half-hour blocks rounded up to nearest half-hour). Each onsite support visit caries a callout charge of £20 with hourly rate of £30 (charged in ½ hour intervals at £15). Remote support service is charged at £26p/h (charged in ¼ hour intervals at £6.50) |
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| Q:During what time do you provide support? |
| A: We provide onsite and telephone support during Monday to Friday, from 9:30 to 17:30 (excluding Bank Holidays). If a customer requires an onsite visit from one of our engineers outside these hours we can arrange this in advance. Overtime (after 17:30) support carries a 30% surcharge on standard rates. Weekend and Bank Holiday support caries a 50% surcharge on standard rates. |
