Richard's Blog

 Archive for the ‘Pricing Structure’ Category

One of our goals at Therap has been to have the best customer support for our users. We were once told we had the best customer service outside of Disneyland.

We have had conversations with a couple of agencies which were not using Therap about using Therap. We were told they were very impressed with Therap – but that the agency had purchased a different system a while back for amounts ranging from perhaps $100,000 to past $1 million in fees plus hardware, maintenance and other costs. Our fee in those instances would have been a fraction of that cost.

We were then told that the agency was not happy with the system or the support, but that they felt stuck with their purchase given what they had paid for it upfront.

This got me thinking about whether there is a correlation between great customer support and pricing models. When a product or service has no upfront fees and no future monetary commitment, does that mean that customers can expect better ongoing support? We have to constantly be good at our service and our reliability or there is really nothing stopping an agency from switching to another system (not that we think there are really any good alternatives in the developmental disability community – as we think we have the best system when factoring in HIPAA, ARRA, electronic signatures, state forms, DSP training, cost savings and so forth).

But the point is we have to prove this everyday.

I started thinking of places known for great support – many of the best support experiences are when customers can relatively easily change their purchase options. If a restaurant gives bad service or bad food you would not go back. Look what happened to the General Motors over time when they developed a reputation for less quality than other auto companies (and I know this is a complex issue but most examples are too complex for a blog post anyway).

Think about the services as an agency provided to individuals and the state and guardians and so forth. Most agencies have contracts which can be cancelled for non-satisfactory services.

I would be curious what the balance at companies which require long term contracts is between support and development costs compared with sales costs. And to what extent long term contracts have a negative correlation with quality service and supports.