General Consultant Discussion

I'm seeing this more frequently. End users who are on maintenance but aren't on a support plan with us and who renew directly with Sage. Yes we make some money on the renewal but in the interim we field easily 6-8 ""quick questions"" similar to this email below. Potentially my solution is that we provide one free service quote (upgrade, etc) to our support customers and all others pay $ x. As an aside, I find that the percent of non-support customers who take a quote we had provided to them is exceptionally low. So I don't see this as being a decrease in revenues. On the down-side - it's time consuming and awkward to explain to the users why they have to pay for a quote that everyone else would give them for free. I submit that with the request below: a. There's value in responding about how this might be done b. There's a very low likelihood that the user would have us perform the work

I agree with everything you've said. I'll talk with a rescue prospect (orphan) about our process and options but never specifically about the solution/software/service/whatever. I find this less time consuming and awkward than trying to walk the fine line about giving away just a little and then trying to pull back because we've given up too much. Within the scope of our SLA, we provide discovery and planning. Anyone that isn't enrolled in one of our agreements, pays for that service. It's usually only $500 for a rescue and has been >$2500 for a new sale and if they accept the project that results from the service, their payment goes towards the project. My experience is that's usually explanation enough. My proposed response to this message: >Thanks for asking. This is absolutely something I have experience with. In fact, I'm working on/just finished projects just like this for users enrolled in my SLA. >If you would like my help in planning your project, here are the options for enrolling in my SLA. >If you choose not to enroll but still need my help, for $N, I can work with you on planning your project and if you decide to use my company for the service, $N will go directly towards that project. >Have a nice life.