What am I paying for?

I went to Customer Source to open a ticket....about the dongle question.

I got: Our records indicate that you do not have a support contract that provides technical support for incidents of type: Microsoft Retail Management. There is an additional charge of: $65.00

HUH?

What am I paying $600 per year for a "maintenance plan" for if they are going to charge me to ask a question?

My renewal is this month. This has been 2 years of paying this and I have NEVER asked them ANYTHING. Maybe I will save my money this year....

Is there a secret to getting support?

Reply to
Mickie
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Well, this is after all M$ that we are referring to here. The "maintenance plan" that you are paying for is only for access to customersource where you can get updates, service packs, hotfixes, knowledgebase, etc but obviously not access to asking question where a real person will have to attend to you. They would have to pay this person $$ to answer your question, that's where the $65 is going to, I guess.

They do not remind you to renew your "maintenance plan", and guess what if you lapse on renewing your "maintenance plan", you will be penalized if you intend to renew again. So think twice before saving your money "this year" because you might end up paying more "next year" should you decide to join back. Guess we are stuck, if you can't beat them, join them, buy some M$ stocks.

Welcome to the family :)

Reply to
Raymond Cheok

Maintenecance and support are not synonymous...This is not an MS thing

- it's an industry wide practice...I have dealt with many POS systems (Retail Pro, CAM, Pixel Point, etc.) and they all do this...Technicians do not work for free, trust me - revenue is required to ensure they are available to you. neither do developers...the maintenance funds continued product development, and support fees provide help in implementing current releases...

Raym> Well, this is after all M$ that we are referring to here. The "maintenance

Reply to
Todd

However, lets not forget, many new RMS customers are not used to this POS system style of support/maintenance that is still hanging on from the olden days.

Personally, in my mind, I still correlate Microsoft with their Windows style of support where you get 3 shots (maybe it's 2 now) at tech support before they charge you, and still they have been known to waive calls on occation.

Although I do see the point in the statement of 'Technicians do not work for free', let's not overlook the 18% (or whatever it is now) maintenance plan price that is NOT by ANY means a value, if they threw in the 3 free support calls like they did a few years ago when it was called Standard Plan A then I have a feeling many people would quit squaking, me included.

18% is alot of money for access to customer source and hotfixes, oh yeah and the .2 and .3 version releases that were sooo worth the money. Being real here, there have not been any real value in releases in about 2 years. Thats buying 1/3 of your software again, imagine if you had a few stores and a few lanes at each store. BIG $$ to download reports..

I think there has been more value in posts to this newsgroup from individuals like Glen, and Jeff than there has been in recent years by purchasing a Maintenance plan.

Oh, by the way there might be a new release this year.

Reply to
root

WOW! They charge a 16% maintainence fee? None of the other POS we are looking at charge a maintainence fee. This is ridiculous. We bought RMS last year, and never paid any maintainence? We are opening a second store, but with the 16%, we definately will look elsewhere.

"Mickie" wrote:

Reply to
Mel

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