As the #1 reseller of Act! in the world, we provide a tremendous amount of support to customers across North America, but the majority of it is "software mechanic" type service, that simply gets them back on the road. While this type of service is essential for business uptime, we want to offer more. We want our customers back on the road, to be sure, but we also want them driving better too, and this takes a different kind of service.
In our minds this is the difference between "support" and "care", and it's with this distinction in mind that we're abolishing our old annual support plans effective November 1st, and replacing them with our new "Orange Care" plans.
Orange Care is different
"Orange Care" is different because it offers training, more regular communications, and steep discounts on the products that will help our customers Act! better, like Handheld Contact and the Knowtifier - just to name a few. In other words, improve their overall Act! experience.
Of interest to many of our customers, is that Orange Care will also be cheaper than the old Annual Support Plans.
Yes, cheaper. Really.
We achieved these savings by changing how we previously structured our flat rate support plans. In April 2014 we introduced plans that were tiered based, so customers paid the same fee whether their team had 1-5 users, 5-9, 10-16, or 17-30 users. Regardless of how many users you had, if you fell within a certain tier's range, you paid the same flat rate as someone in the same tier, but with fewer users. The unintended consequence of this pricing model was smaller groups paid more than their fair share of the support costs, compared to larger teams.
"Orange Care" is different. The pricing for Orange Care is based on a lower per user rate - not a range. And it's simple too. As in $10/per user/per month kind of simple. Even with both plans billed annually, the savings are huge for smaller teams.
And customers that renew their Orange Care on-time, save another 10%, reducing their costs to $9/per user/month.
Orange Care Plan Benefits
The details of Orange Care support plans are as follows:
- 12 months of unlimited phone and email support (up to 30 minutes per call/per day). Support is defined as help with troubleshooting error messages occurring with installation, upgrades, basic usability and basic functionality.
- More complex questions, repairs, set up or troubleshooting issues may require additional charges if service extends beyond a half hour can be billed at $145/Hour, or subtracted from a VIP Support plan
- NEW! Free membership in the Act! Training Units (ATU) program (a $25 value per user), that provides access to monthly instructor led courses in both Act for Windows and Web (English & French).
- NEW! Includes 50% off Handheld Contact subscriptions
- NEW! Includes 50% off a subscription of “The Knowtifier”, a $49.50 annual savings!
- NEW! 10% Discount for on-time renewals of support plans (must be renewal of a full year of Orange Care)
- Orange Care includes Level 1 & 2 Technical Support
- Support does NOT cover development service.
- Must be a VIP Club member to purchase Orange Care, and Orange Care must be coterminous with VIP contract (VIP members that purchase Orange Care mid-term, will have their Orage Care fee prorated to the date of the of their VIP renewal, or they'll be allowed to purchase another VIP Plan before their normal renewal date).
The Orange Care annual support plan is an excellent "peace of mind" addition to any hosted or on-premise Act! customer that wants to focus on his business, while enjoying cost certainty for his Act! support needs.