[TriLUG] On bidding maintenance.

[jonc]

Give them a quote based on your "Business Days". IE: initial response to
problem will be by next <corporate name> business day - in most cases
the initial response should resolve the problem. 

Publish your <corporate name> business holidays and you are covered.

Also ask for remote access to the systems. Charge more for maintenance
if you have to go back on-site. Be sure they know that most problems are
not a result of the programming but are caused by changes in local
protocols or procedures. Problems of this nature are not covered by
warranty.

Enjoy - Jon Carnes

On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 09:59, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:
> 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
> generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
> Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!