[TriLUG] On bidding maintenance.

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

I'm bidding on a project that requires maintenance. I'll 
offer maintenance on both a per incident or annual basis 
(the customer will chose). The code I will install is _not_ 
critical to the businesses operation, but they would be glad 
if it wasn't down any more than could be helped.

Since there's only me doing this, rather than a large 
corporation, I can't guarantee a response time (eg I go 
hiking for my vacations and am not contactable). What I can 
offer is "best effort" (or whatever it's called) which will 
usually be less than 24hrs during the week, and for about 
half the weekends. If I go hiking I can get another SA to be 
on call and cover for me.

What's a good way of stating in the bid what I can do? I 
don't want the customer to get alarmed that if he goes with 
a single person business, that the installation could be 
down for a long time. The customer has only ever talked to 
me and I don't have letterhead paper etc, so he should have 
figured out that I'm just a small local operation. I haven't 
told him that I have a full time job and I do projects like 
his to earn extra money.

Thanks Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
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