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Acceptable Consulting Proceedures
Since a few people had a go at us in another unrelated topic for offering management / consulting. I thought I would ask for feedback on what we could do better in the offering of such services. Perhaps this will lead to improved procedure or perhaps this will just lead to increased awareness to those in this community not involved in the business side of operations.
How we do things currently:
- In the event a customer requires support that either a) Requires us to access their 3rd party servers (e.g for setup); or b) Requires an engineer to perform more than a basic cursory google search into the technologies they are using (including custom development, research / experimentation into an aspect of the application not documented, on server troubleshooting etc) management is typically required
- This is typically explained to the customer as a statement like "XYZ is outside the scope of managed support, we can do ABC for you or we need you to provide DEF and perhaps do ABC" or "Sure we can set it up for you, its not included in our service by default but we can do it for you under management. Would you like us to do that? If so I'll send you the details.".
- Support continues if management isnt chosen, providing that it stays within the scope of support
Management terms:
- Management is billed in 1 hour blocks at $45USD/hr based off a signed contract and scope of works which we ask for from the customer and then confirm our understanding of. We provide a time estimate, either at this time or if needed within the first hour if the job is more difficult to immediately quote. In most cases this is a budget and we eat any excess hours within reason (i.e round down).
- A deposit of 1 hour is required for all jobs (as account balance). Payment terms are specified for the remainder if job exceeds an hour.
- Generally no refunds are permitted on management hours unless otherwise agreed. Licenses (e.g software / games) required to be purchased (at customer cost) for the job are non refundable.
Additional typical terms / actions applicable to most cases:
- Typically we don't charge for jobs we are unable to complete due to unexpected issues. Or if we do need to charge we try and reduce the charge (not contractual obligation).
- We don't charge for quoting time or prior research to asses feasibility (as we try to take on only sucessfully completable jobs).
- We don't charge for any time thats not 100% on task. If the job requires us to log back in in X time to check on something, post job monitoring or a short followup its not going to be charged (within reason). We try and do jobs as a 1 hour scheduled block which while difficult to find ensure the customer gets what they pay for.
- We generally try and seek customer approval on the works completed before charging. Where possible any rectification works if the fix is incomplete or something is missing from the customer setup (e.g incorrect boot script) can be identified and quickly done before the charge is applied.
Things we advise the customer to do (in the templated reply):
- To change any access credentials before and after providing them to us (and idemnify ourselves against responsibility there)
- That we will only use any access credentials during the management session as authorised
- Where possible a period of time for access is aranged / booked e.g for a Scheduled window on the customer side (we try for AEST, however do try and be flexible where we can accomodate)
Things we won't do:
- Pay our people less. The rate charged is already makes it very difficult to get competent and trained people to do the work (and thats before fees and overheads). Bringing on people with less skill at a lower rate would run the risk of jobs taking longer and costing the customer more. Also please keep in mind that people are keeping their skills up for only 10-20 hours (most jobs being 1hr) of work per year in a sporadic way often requested to be done ASAP across a huge variety of platforms. Would you do that work for less? Currently we are able to do this through using our in-house development team wherever possible to do the work. If we had to keep a seperate staff pool for this it wouldnt reduce the costs due to the limited number of hours.
- Increase the monthly costs of our services to provide or further subsidise management to our customers at this level (or add a setup fee). I don't agree with this in principle.
- Remove the signed contract requirement (this has proven a massive cost reducer by resolving a common fraud pattern)
- Login to third party servers without indemnity (we have already been threatened once without cause with legal action years ago when an ex customer got hacked months after a management event).
- Accept smaller jobs than 1 billable hour ($45)
Things we try not to do:
- Unnecessarily rely on management for customer support inquiries. We have 2 main activation criteria for exceeding unmanaged support and generally try not to bring up management unless mentioned by the customer or the customers ticket clearly falls outside the scope of support.
- Unnecessarily quote on management tasks. Job specification, quoting and feasibility research takes time and currently we have roughly a 50% quote approval result (I would like to see this higher). A quick grep of the ticket list for the template shows its been brought up (by either party) 25 times this year, and we have completed 13 sessions (12 sucessful, 1 pending customer approval on works) so far.
- We are trying not to kill this capability, despite the costs to operate it does provide a capability that has helped many customers.
Things we communicate:
- We have a KB page that defines support responsibilities https://www.x4b.net/kb/General/Management (linked in the templated reply)
- The Management / Consulting Agreement for unmanaged services section sumarises the contract that is provided (linked in the templated reply)
- The templated management response contains the next steps for proceeding which are largely the definition of scope of works (which we repeat back our understanding of), scheduling and submission of contract (signed)
Things I think we could do better:
- I do think we could perhaps do better at defining the Scope of Support section (https://www.x4b.net/kb/General/Management) and in general making it a little bit easier to digest that page.
- We could remove the offer of managed support from the support ticket signature. Currently it states "Need technical management services? Get trained Engineers to handle setup & management for you. Contact us for pricing." is that too pushy? I didnt think so.
What else can we do better to not be attracking the hate? I am open to constructive feedback on the process. I do alot of work as a consultant in the non LE world these days and certainly think the terms we offer are incredibly generous for the charged amount. Thoughts?
Comments
You're asking on LowEndTalk?
Its only LowEndTalk that seems to have a problem with the terms. And to full on take offence that management exists.
LowEndTalk
Is a very diverse community, including many people who work in related industries.
Anyway I've put this out there now, we will see if anyone has anything productive to suggest to change. I could have done some changes quietly in the background (e.g make the kb page more digestable) but I think thats disingenuous considering that I believe the process to pretty decent. If I am missing something in the process then I should fix it now.
I just got told:
Which I would like to make very clear in documentation is not the case. Can I protect myself against this perception? I don't know.
But if there is something to be changed, I will listen to the community. I dont wish for the offer to be unfair.
Lowend or not drop this customer. He is not worth the time actually. This is another type of fraud pattern. But I think you should make video tutorials(if you haven't already) and make deployment easier/one click installer like thing and narrow down platforms.
Ah I see who made that comment. What do you expect here? Lol
The cost we have been quoted for video tutorials has always exceeded our budget. I havent shopped around though, it might have been a bad quote.
We might get a generic one produced at some point based around something simple (e.g Minecraft), but getting each individual platform ones done is far beyond our budget for such things unfortunately.
Most of the guides only really have a single step and are one-click within the guide (obviously there are exceptions). Most of the steps around are more the preperation / steps required for people who arent even at the starting line (like setup your backend, purchase a service, etc).
But thank you for the feedback. I will put it on the evaluation list.
"I thought this is a better Lowend forum, I was wrong"
Perhaps there is a subtle truth there.
Do not take such clients. Do not allow 2% of clientele to introduce 90% of problems. No matter the money.
Friendly as always.
ID: 5396
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/198029/who-has-the-best-out-of-the-box-ddos-protection/
I love how you cut out the other post which explained why I trashed you like that.
The procedures you have a pretty reasonable. Basically, you provide a bit of support, if it gets too much and/or too time consuming i.e handholding, you tell the customer they should pay. You even set the expectations out in writing about what responsibilities are on the customer and what assumed knowledge they should have which I think is GOOD.
However I think you can employ some other strategies beyond just direct payment for managed service/support that can help customers to get the product/service working and make them happy:
1. Add more docs, make them very very detailed. I see you mentioned a knowledgebase, so you're doing pretty good there.
2. You may be able to find affiliates or partners who are willing to go the extra mile with those customers to get the product working for them, and that partner takes a cut. You can then be much more strict about your customers. You deal with enterprise or customers who have developers who know what they're doing, and everybody else goes through some implementation partner.
3. Improve the product! This is the hardest, and if what you're selling is especially technical, its not always possible to make it accessible by a monkey, but the more you can do the better. More strict onboarding flow, more detailed instructions, etc. This kinda relates back to point 1.
If all else fails and a customer is too much trouble, not willing to pay, and is struggling to get thing working, you're better off refunding them and leaving it at that. Take a small L on the time spent so far, rather than creating animosity with a customer who will make more bad PR and was too small of an entity to pay for management in the first place.
I have reviewed your ticket and think the response we gave was inline with our procedures. I probably could have explained better why we could not answer your query without performing 2-3 hours of research and software development however. That aspect was probably a little short.
Your question was about replacing MASQUERADE with SNAT and usage with OpenVPN. Honestly I don't know enough about MASQUERADE as used in in that application off-hand to answer that even today. And certainly not enough to tell you without doing troubleshooting the problem with the rules you developed. Your desired setup would have required some implementation and testing to detirmine even feasability (before suitability for your desired use) and thats something that requires access to the backend server which is not available outside of management or for us to replicate your setup on a server of ours and subsequently develop a solution there for you. This made this clearly a case for management. In that we could not answer your question without management.
I don't get it, why would I not just use cloudflare for protection ?
Try to get Cloudflare (without expensive products like Magic Transit) to protect a Minecraft server.
Honestly, $45/hr for consulting is a steal for IT. Unless you want to hire people from India or something...
Its not if its about generic question about the product hes selling. You expect anyone to pay 150 usd on top of the product price for intructions? Long story short, I wanted to use his advertised openvpn protection with anycast plan or whatever the most expensive one was. Ofc it wont work cause it doesent know the return route with his script setting up multiple endpoints. Solution: use the cheapest plan and it worked out of the box with the same setup script he provided on his panel. Took basil from vmhaus about 15 mins to figure this out. (Yes I rather paid to him for helping me set it up according to the docs found in x4b.).
If you need 3 hours to research your own stuff to explain how one of ur supported use case is suppose to be setup on blank machine, im questioning if you even made it or just copy pasted it from buyvm.
tl:dr, if you buy it for vpn, get the cheapest plan.
Is where you went wrong. Your particular question / setup is not covered in any advertised documentation. And generally any 3rd party applicaiton documentation represents the upper limit of what we know in that area (if we knew more, it would be documented). Sometimes we don't even know that much as the documentation is customer submitted (e.g in exchange for assistance).
It was definately not a question that related to any common use case of our product. It was 100% an implementation specific for you and your needs.
To this date to the best of my knowledge no one else has ever asked the same question or even trying to do the same as you and I still don't know the answer to it. Answering it would require investigation with an OpenVPN setup.
The vibe Im getting here is it doesnt really matter what we said or did you would have behaved the same. I.e we shouldnt change anything. Either that or you think I am alot smarter than I actually am.
P.S you where estimated at 2-3 hours. Even in the event that was over I fail to see how that justified your behaviour, in the event it took 1 then so be it you would have got charged at 1. Given the scope of your question I thought it best to estimate at 2-3. There was no discussion on this from you, only this.
You also told him to STFU?
A @skorupion hour can be purchased for $10.
Why do I want an $45 hour from a faceless corporation?
Years later, after he has done this multiple times.
Although that was more in anger, and for that I do appologise.
I have a face, but you will need to take my word for it.
could*
@SplitHairs
Need some more people picking sides and we get a good drama.
Didnt you admit in another thread if a customer sent you 22K in crypto for services you'd just keep it and tell him to fuck off?
Yet you are complaing here over not getting free help.
Not really buying your fake victimization
LET never ceases to amaze. In which world you do think that creating this post is going to bring meaningful and helpful discussion? Sometimes you just need to stop a conversation.
Also try harder not to insult customers even if they are being cunts or worse.
Well, if our terms are in fact shit as claimed then this thread would provide some feedback for improvement.
If not its a thread to quote next time he pulls this. Better than being told I'm an "insufferable asshole" and other things etc every time I post.
Use this
my i luv highenddrama
Not sure how this is relevant cause that was if I were a provider, which im not and never will be. Atleast nothing non-free hosting.
In this case im customer paying money to somewhat reputable company.
If someone stupidly sends you 22k accidently, would you not keep it? And what victim? I simply gave feedback about his rude service and support which even simple questions about product requires you to deposit 100 usd or more.
He might as well rename his support section to consulting section.