Best pricing policy for calls?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

We've all read the original Sysadmin Price List, but most of us work in places where the policies regarding the cost of techsupport are set by people who, let's face it, would be challenged to outthink sand.

Back in the world of functioning neurons, what would be the ideal charging structure? Keep in mind that you probably want to encourage calls about genuine issues (especially if you're a corporate helpdesk), but at the same time cut down on the amount of stupidity and annoyance coming down the line. To be honest, it would be nice to be able to run a helpdesk as an actual business component or genuine private service, not a combination of a general information line, Miss Cleo, and a talking version of the F1 key.

So what should be charged, and to who, and when?

Comments

[egearman.livejournal.com]

Just my ideas...

CEO/Board Members - Free. Sad, but true.
"Technical" Manager - 50% increase in charges.
Technical Manager - +/-50% depending on the fixes they have tried (even those who were in the trenches can become boneheaded).
Administrative Assistant - +/-200% depending on appearance and annoyance factor.
New Hire - 25% discount until they have a mail drop. (By this standard, I'm still a new hire after three years)
Fossil who should know better - +100%, since it's likely the same thing they did last month, and the month before, etc. "It worked on system X"(not manufactured in the last 15 years).
In-house Sparky who the "Technical" Manager decided needed system access - Up to 300% increase depending on how many of your tools they still have.

[azurelunatic]

General reference to online help center - free.
First reference to online help center, with specific article - free.
Subsequent specific article references - $0.50 apiece.
Specific article reference when the question you asked me contains the exact search string that will bring up the article you're talking about - $5.00.
Reference to bundle of articles related to the product(s) you bought - included with purchase.

General POP3 email information - free, with bonus reference to help center article included as a warning.
Email client setup with existing help center article - $1.00.
Email client setup without existing help center article - $10.00, $5.00 if you send screenshots of successful setup.
Fixing an email client setup that you thought you could do yourself, with available help center article that you did not use - $25.00
Fixing an email client setup that you thought you could do yourself, without existing help center article - not supported directly, can give general POP3 settings.
Information on checking webmail - free.
If you insisted it was a problem with our Outlook settings when it was really a problem with your incorrect password - $25.00.
Insisting that our server is down when it is clearly a problem with settings that we do not support (on your computer or with your ISP) - $50.00, referral to your usual computer tech, your ISP, and the manufacturer of your OS and/or your email program included.
Googling your error message for you - $30.

Thinking you called Hotmail instead of the support for the example.com mailservers because you saw our number in a bounce message - free.
Me not laughing - $20.00.

Thinking you called any other company instead of $CORPORATE_GROUP - free for the first minute of untangling the misunderstanding.
- $5.00/minute for the first 2 minutes after that.
- $10.00/minute for the first 2 minutes after that.
- $50.00/minute for any subsequent minutes.

Calling in to renew any product you could have renewed, yourself, online (in a timely fashion) - free, because we get commission from it when you do that. ♥
Calling in to renew any product after the third failed billing attempt, and expecting the product to magically be restored to active service with no further effort - restore fees starting at $150/product.
Insisting it be done immediately - $50/instance, with $100 surcharge for cursing.
Having to have a supervisor explain the technical impossibility - $200 to start, $10/minute additional after the first five minutes.

Resetting an email address that hadn't set up fully due to MX records not having propagated at the time of initial setup - free.
Walking through changing your nameservers because you didn't realize you had to set anything up to use our email - $5
Fixing the mess you made of our MX records - $20
Telling you that you have to renew your domain name for your email to work - $40.
Renewing the expired domain name after the grace period - regular renewal fee plus $80 administrative fee and a bitchslap gratis.
Fielding complaints that the custom DNS settings you had on your domain evaporated after the domain expired - $20/complaint.

[brothersterno.livejournal.com]

hourly: $100 an hour for all calls
Possible Discount cases:
1) cute girl/guy/fur gives you a peek/touch/whatever, AND you can get away with it.
2) it's broken, like, warranty replacement, no user fault, AND it's your responsibility to replace.
3) They will fire you if you charge them. I've found that execs typically respond well to gentle instruction as to how to obtain their answer through the proper channels or through policies they have implemented. You do need to phrase it right, as in "Yes, I can try to help you, but I don't know much about that because you pay me $$$ to know something else, and jim over there knows ALL about it and you only pay him $." That said, ridiculous idiots exist everywhere, so Y.M.M.V.

[brothersterno.livejournal.com]

and that's billed in 15 minute increments. Door to door, not time onsite.

[telecon.livejournal.com]

The company I do support for charges $450 an hour for an external customer to talk to me, if they don't have a contract.