A Software Support Contract is part insurance and part scheduled maintenance. It is designed to give peace of mind when things are going smoothly and rapid response support when you need it most, all at a price fixed at the beginning of the Contract period.
At MCI Systems we provide a choice of support contracts to suit our customers' working requirements. Support includes telephone and online assistance, site visits where necessary and free system upgrades.
We offer three support options: Gold Support Contract, Platinum Support Contract and Pay-as-you-go.
Why you should use our Gold or Platinum Support Contract
By choosing one of our two support contracts you are able to know exactly how much your software support will be for the whole year and you will not have to worry about expensive call-outs if any problem should arise.
It will also ensure a quick response every time as our Gold/Platinum customers are dealt with before any other support queries.
Having one of our support contracts also gives you access to ongoing maintenance and free upgrades during the term of the contract.
Gold Support Contract
- Priority over non-Contract holders
- Voice telephone support to deal with queries and problems
- On-line assistance by telephone modem Yes
- Bug fixes by modem to restore the system functionality to specification
- Upgrade package at least once a year
- Scheduled site visit once a year to maximise performance to specification
- Non-scheduled site visits to deal with operational problems
- Product News to User by email or post
- One day training visit each year
- Second scheduled site visit each year
- Up to 2 days of tailoring of system to meet changing user requirements
Platinum Support Contract
- Priority over non-Contract holders
- Voice telephone support to deal with queries and problems
- On-line assistance by telephone modem Yes
- Bug fixes by modem to restore the system functionality to specification
- Upgrade package at least once a year
- Scheduled site visit once a year to maximise performance to specification
- Non-scheduled site visits to deal with operational problems
- Product News to User by email or post
- One day training visit each year
- Second scheduled site visit each year
- Up to 2 days of tailoring of system to meet changing user requirements
What happens if my system runs into trouble?
Fortunately this is quite unusual with most of the contract benefit coming from the free maintenance and systems upgrades but when things do go wrong you are guaranteed a priority service at all times.
This means should a problem occur which interferes with production, we will resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We keep downtime to a minimum and avoid you having to wait for an Engineer to attend your site by placing you at the head of the support queue, in front of non-Contract Holders.
Although we often do better, normal response times are Voice telephone assistance - within 1 working day, Modem assistance - within 2 working days and Site visits - within 3 working days.
We are also able to provide online support and can often resolve issues by logging in to your system remotely - fixing bugs and restoring system functionality to specification.
In the case of a hard drive failure, we will reinstall the software and reconfigure the system to the last back-up. This may include restoring the database, depending on availability of archived records.
Your contract gives you unlimited site visits and at no extra charge.
What do you get if you choose pay-as-you-go?
We understand that not all of our customers choose one of our Support contracts so we also offer a 'Pay-as-you-go' option. This options means that we are available to give support and to deal with problems should they arise but we will not be able to guarantee a specific turn-around time or to provide a fix fee for these services.
Priority is always given to our customers with Software Support Contracts. While initial response to non-Contract Holders is usually within one working day, it can take longer, depending on our work load.
A site visit for non Contract Holders may take between 5 and 15 working days to arrange and this is again dependent on our work load.
Our support costs will depend on the amount and type of service required. Severe problems requiring an Engineer's extended presence on site can easily cost more to resolve than the annual Contract cost.
We do not support out-of-date versions of our software so, before we carry out any investigation on your system, we need to make sure that the software is running with the latest supportable version.
If the system needs a programme upgrade to bring it up-to-date, we charge 20% of the original software cost to carry out the change, excluding Engineer's attendance time.