Has anyone negotiated a Support Contract?

[SimonMac]

Asking for a friend, they would like someone to come in and "sort out their existing system" and then offer a monthly support contract for a fixed number of hours/days per month. Its a realativly small organisation, 5-6 workstations and a server etc so they are asking what they need to do to get something like this, would an agency touch a gig like this or would they need to do it all themselves?

Also if you have set up something like this do you mind PM'ing me and I can ask a few specific questions.

[northernladuk]

Any of these help or are they all asking a similar question but without any useful responses? Didn't look at any of them to be honest.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=su...hrome&ie=UTF-8

[SimonMac]

Any of these help or are they all asking a similar question but without any useful responses? Didn't look at any of them to be honest.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=su...hrome&ie=UTF-8

I'm thinking more from the clients side rather than the contractors, suppose I should have asked about a putting together a bid to tender

[Vandalay]

I did this a couple of years ago and it has worked out fine since without an agency.

I used a contract template off Alan Weiss's website (Summit Consulting Group Secure Store, Books - Forms and Templates from The Million Dollar Consulting® Toolkit), then tweaked to suit the circumstances.

Be sure to specify if unused hours roll, what constitutes billable / non billable time, and what additional hours will cost.

[billybiro]

would an agency touch a gig like this

Is the pope catholic?

If there's money to be made, they'll be all over it like flies on a bucket of sh!t!

[RasputinDude]

I have a couple of small support contracts with clients. Feel free to PM me if you want to ask questions.

[permNoMore]

I have a couple of small support contracts with clients. Feel free to PM me if you want to ask questions.

Would like to PM but doesn't look like I have access to it.

I have similar issue now, and would really like to hear how people handle SLAs etc. when working as a contractor / one-man-band. I know how it is done (at least sometimes...) from big co. supplier side (think of a number you think they'll pay, use project staff for support while it's still running, maybe have someone on support who knows the project afterwards if it is particularly flaky, otherwise panic-find-someone-who-knows when a P1 hits, or plan on busting SLAs anyway and factor in cost of resulting support credits).

Client wants me to outline what I could offer as support for a project I have worked on, both as perm (with original supplier) and now on contract. They know my ltd. is just me, they know I may well be (hopefully!) working elsewhere, and sometimes try and have a life including holidays, but they want to know what I could offer on support and SLAs. Most issues they can probably now handle in-house, it should just be the third-line non-trivial-fix issues - but just occasionally they are the big ones

Gut feeling is I can offer very little beyond a vague personal commitment to get back to them asap (end of day if working elsewhere etc.) and not leave them sat for days with a busted system - but I know that will go precisely nowhere with their legal.

Is there a way to do this when you don't have a team of people on the phone / ticket-system ?