How to Support Software after Go-Live?

by greenr55

Posted: 13 years ago 3 replies

PROGRAMMING

Hi Warriors,

I have an idea for a software product. Yes .. I know you've heard that a million times. It's actually something I seen users of three different forums asking about, but there's really not a product out there that meets the needs that I can see.

My question is really about supporting the product after it's built. I want to make sure that users are well supported, but I can't personally do it because I have a project manager job in IT where I work very long hours.

So my question is ... what is a typical arrangement between someone like myself and a programmer after the software goes live? Does the programmer get paid a monthly amount or a per support case amount or something else?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Roy

#golive #software #support

mahesh2010 13 years ago

Hello ,

providing a support is very important work after a development .

you can provide live help in your website through live chat or

providing mail support .these are two main ways to provide support for a software
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- HonestCoder 13 years ago
  
  As someone who's been there, here's my tips
  
  1 - Build a community... encourage your users to help each other out where possible, you'd be amazed just how much time people will give you for free just to help the community. You will often find a community member will go a lot further to help than anyone you could pay to do support.
  
  2 - Build a community... ok already said this but doesn't hurt to remind you
  
  3 - Offer paid support... give customers the option to get a guaranteed response within X hours (48 hours worked well for us although we almost always responded in under 12) for a subscription fee
  
  4- Get a ticket system... whatever you do DON'T use email for support unless you are expecting just 1 or 2 emails per day. Things get complicated very fast when you are replying to emails and customers are replying back, a waste of yours and their time and easy to overlook a support request (bad for your reputation). Something like Kayako lets you track support tickets (which from the user's side can be done through email, the software does all that for you) and you can set up staff users so you can give/remove access to staff when you start paying them (another tip - recruit support staff from your forum community )
  
  As for the contract you have with your programmer, that's entirely up to you and him. How about paying him a fee to support customers and handle the inevitable bug fixes for the first 3 months after launch, while you spend what time you have building up the community?
  
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  greenr55 13 years ago
  
  Thanks for the input Mahesh2010 and Honest Coder. It is much appreciated.
  
  I get it ... Build a Community That sounds like the way to go. I believe Jonathan Leger and the guys at Ubot do this too. Sounds like the approach I take.
  
  Thanks.
  
  Roy
  
  Thanks
  
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