What's the market value for customer support?
October 25, 2011 2:12 PM   Subscribe

I'm about to go into business doing freelance customer support, but: I have no idea how much to charge for this.

I've tried to look around and get a sense of market value for this kind of work, but the majority of what I've found seems to be Indian firms with absurdly cheap rates.

Should I charge per-email? (How much?) Hourly? (How much?) Some flat fee based on an estimate of how much work it will be? (I'm doing this for one client and got caught out by a 1000x increase in email volume last week when he released a new version of his product, ouch.) None of the options seem perfect, but is it weird to mix and match? Say, a flat fee (a retainer, if you like) + a per-email a charge?

My thinking is that per-email makes little sense since the length of time an issue takes to deal with can vary wildly, so I'm leaning towards hourly, but I know that one of my interested parties would amount to probably barely an hour a week, despite a reasonable volume of emails and requirement of somewhat-specialised knowledge.

Any thoughts?
posted by nostrich to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: For clients who may eat up a lot of time, I'd do hourly.

For clients who may need you regularly but wouldn't eat up a lot of time, I'd do flat-fee retainer for up to x hours of work per week, with y per-hour overage built into the contract.

In terms of what to bill, if you don't have an idea of what the competition charges, the usual formula for hourly is something like amount you want to make per month/number of hours you want to work per month. For a freelance CS gig, I'd keep in mind what a reasonable rate for hiring a CS person would be, so you don't want to go nuts on the hourly rate.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:23 PM on October 25, 2011


I have no idea what the industry standard is, but personally I'd never hire a support rep and pay per-email. You'd be incentivizing the rep to not solve the client's problem (assuming if the problem isn't addressed you'll be emailed back).
posted by bitdamaged at 2:37 PM on October 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'm not sure what "per-email" means. . if there are multiple email exchanges, does the price of a solution go up? I've worked with firms that pay per solution. Make sure you have a good tracking system, note everything you do and how long it takes. Bill per solution and have a clear statement the defines the scope of the solutions you are to handle and an optimal number of solutions per week/month.
posted by patrad at 3:15 PM on October 25, 2011


Either retainer, with defined on-site and phone time, but probably unlimited email, or per hour. In the case of hourly rates, there should be a minimum billing period, i.e., 25/1st 15 minutes, 60/hour thereafter. Or 100/1st hour, then 60/hour. That 1st hour is the biggest pain. Offer to charge less for a computer you have in the shop being imaged/updated, since you will be working on several projects at once.

Look at Geek Squad's pricing to see how they charge, and look at others in your area.
posted by theora55 at 8:49 AM on October 26, 2011


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