Re: AYT? Support network, anyone up to?

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

> One possibility of this arrangement I like is that we could offer a
> deal to CD manufacturers (ie. CheapBytes, LSL) to offer a Debian CD
> with support bundled in.  They would pay us up front, and we would
> allocate time for each customer.  We would just issue coupons with
> codes on them that would be valid for 30 minutes of consulting time,
> or something like that.

This is an excellent idea.

 1) we should be able to offer 24x7 support (by e-mail at least) with little
    effort, because of the timezone advantage.

 2) It's a clasic ``puppy dog'' sell --- they get to try the support for free,
    and then realise they don't want to do without it.

 3) They'd only be getting what I tend to give away anyway (I'm happy to
    spend a few minutes making sure someone gets to be a Debian user,
    rather than a failed installer, and I imagine that goes for many of us).

 4) most people loose these sorts of coupons :-)

If we made the coupons read something like

  ``100 dollars worth (30 minutes) of Support'' 

and charged the CD manufacturers $25 per coupon, they could then sell the CD's 
with the tag line:  $50 (including $100 worth of support)

[The figures would need to be worked out]

The point is that item 4) above means that we are not likely to actually need 
to supply all the support, so we should be able to sell the coupons at below 
face value, giving the CD manufacturers a profit margin.

Also, if we log the problems and fixes, we can eliminate them from the next 
release, and stop the people calling us up in the first place (thus increasing
the 4) effect), and provide a consultants FAQ which should provide most of
the simple answers (many support calls are rather unoriginal)

Cheers, Phil.



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