Defining Support

Terminology is important in our business.  Digital Agencies like us love our jargon.  But let’s be clear.  When we talk about “Support” we’re talking about fixes and a helping hand for the web technology we’ve built as it was delivered.  Anything outside of that is not “support.”  It’s probably more like a “Feature Request.”

Support is maintenance, fixes, and a helping hand for the web technology we’ve built as it was delivered. Outside of that, it’s probably a “Feature Request.”

Let’s take a look at some examples.

As-Needed Support Example

Let’s say a client has a support contract with us for their WordPress website.  One of the administrators locks themselves out of the account and they don’t understand the whole password recovery thing or a security plugin has blocked their IP address for some number of hours.

In this case, we’re happy to login using our credentials, unlock the IP address, and reset the Admin’s password for them.

This sort of “as-needed” support is usually done the same day during regular business hours.  If over a weekend, we’ll probably recommend we do it first thing on Monday, or charge for the help at our after-hours or rush rate.

This example is pretty obvious.  The system we’ve built is functioning as it should.  This client is simply making a support request–not a new or updated feature.

Ongoing Support Example

What we refer to as “Ongoing Support” is more housekeeping and monitoring stuff.  These are things like keeping the CMS core up-to-date with the latest security patches, updating plugins/modules, uptime & performance monitoring (usually via Pingdom), and automated security (WordFence, Sucuri, or whatever).

These are your typical, everyday housekeeping chores for a modern, healthy website.  In the event of a security breach, we’re notified; we’ll fix it; prevent it from happening again; and notify our client.  If there’s a compatibility issue with something we’ve built and an update to CMS core, we’ll find the depreciated function and fix that too.

Our Ongoing Support is typically a flat-rate, monthly fee.  Things we feel need to be done, are done at no additional fee.

Separate Project, Not Support

Let’s say we’re building a WordPress website and the client says they’ll never need to update the fonts or the color pallet for their site.  So we hard-code the CSS with all the fonts and color pallet (not editable from the WordPress Customizer).  The client approves the design as-is and we launch.  Then, 6-months later, the client would like to leave the colors but wants all the fonts changed.

That is a separate project and not covered under any “support” agreement.

Why?  Because the fonts and colors were baked in during development and approved.  Months later, we receive a request to change them.  We’re happy to.  It’ll be a simple and inexpensive project, but it’s a project–not a “support request.”

Feature Request Example

Now for the important part.  When is a “support request” actually a “feature request?”

Let’s say a client wants to be able to use WordPress Tags and Categories as their post taxonomies.  After the site is approved and launched, they want a new taxonomy for post types (reviews, commentary, or external link).   There could be some miss-understanding about how taxonomies work.  The client may see this as simply a support request, “Just add another category that allows us to filter by these three taxonomies–not just two.”  If it were that simple, we would.

We know this is a much more complicated requirement and one that actually requires re-engineering the taxonomies for the site.  Based on that requirement, this is not a support request.  That’s a new way for the approved site to function.  It’s a feature request, we’d be thrilled to submit a proposal for.

Who Makes the Distinction?

Bottom line, the distinction is ours, alone, to make.  There is no negotiation.  When things get into these grey areas, we prefer a single decision-maker and since we’re the web nerds, the call is best left to us.

Maybe the change is so small it’s hardly worth arguing about.  Maybe we can tweak the requirement so it IS a support request and not a separate project.

Ask away!

We love what we do and we love making great web technology even better.

We also don’t mind submitting proposals if you’re just interested to see what can be done and for how much.