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Company Support Policy History

The below information was policy prior to July 1, 2012

Preferred Customer Annual Support Agreement

(formerly known as the "Annual Support Contract" (ASC) or "Annual Support Offer" (ASO))

How to Purchase:

To purchase the Preferred Customer Annual Support Agreement for any or all of your sites, please submit payment of $59/site/year using either:

How much is support without the Agreement?

For sites without any valid support coverage, support requests will be invoiced at our labor rates of $100/hour, $25/minimum, per-request / per-site.
  Note: We have priced the Agreement at such an economical value that its intent is to be something of an "insurance policy". Should we receive a request for support on a site without the Agreement, that request will be invoiced at our published labor rates above. At that time, it is up to the webmaster or site owner if they'd like to purchase the Agreement to prevent being invoiced for *future* support requests. Purchasing the Agreement when support is needed will not eliminate the invoicing of the requested support.

Support Policy Background & Inception


When it comes to customer satisfaction and customer support, we are always happy to help in whatever way we can, and hope our customers are not only, at the very least, satisfied with our products, but also satisfied with the support they receive when it is requested.

Back in 2007, we started selling the option to purchase the what was then called the "Annual Support Contract (ASC)", and for a brief period was named the "Annual Support Offer (ASO)", when either Strongbox or Throttlebox was purchased. This support coverage is known today as the "Preferred Customer Support Agreement", and is an Annual Agreement.

Because we had so many customers who had purchased our products before the offer was available, up until recently, we have been pretty lax on any support requests that took less than 15 minutes to complete.

Over the years, the demand for support has increasingly grown (sometimes the requests are related to our products, while sometimes the requested support is for things that have nothing to do with our products). Many requests are small and do take less than 15 minutes to address. However, when we get 50 of those per day, that is approximately 12.5 hours of work that we just completed "for free".

Obviously we could not stay in business continuing in this manner, but no one here at BetterCGI (RMEE) felt it was fair to just start slapping people unexpectedly with labor charges for support. We had to figure out a way where we could be compensated for our time, without having to nickel & dime our customers to death for every little thing.

The solution we came up with was to start the Preferred Customer Support Agreement. We felt $59/site/year to help offset the additional fees that *would* have to have been added in to the cost of our products was a fair compromise, and we offer a $20 discount when it is purchased up front. For sites without any valid support coverage, support requests will be invoiced at our labor rates of $100/hour, $25/minimum, per request.

If you would like to purchase the Preferred Customer Support Agreement for any or all of your sites, you can submit the $59/site/year payment either using paypal (accounting@bettercgi.com) or by credit card through our secure payment form below:

   https://www.bettercgi.com/checkout_any.html

Again, the Agreement is not *required*, however requests for support on sites without coverage *will* be invoiced at the above labor rates and payment is expected at the time services are rendered. Additionally, the Agreement does come with *one* free upgrade or re-installation to be used at any time at during the year it is valid, at the discretion of the webmaster/site owner.

For existing sites, the Preferred Support Agreement will be valid for one year starting the date we receive payment either for its initial purchase, or its annual renewal. For new license purchases, the Agreement will be valid for one year starting date the purchased product is activated.

Since we are now effectively enforcing the support policy, we wanted to make sure that our customers are aware of the policy, understand why it exists, and what their options are.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions or would like clarification regarding anything on this page, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you.