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Alternatively, charge them appropriately. I billed at double rate with an one hour minimum for unscheduled phone inquiries. Nothing makes you rich or stops thei

Alternatively, charge them appropriately. I billed at double rate with an one hour minimum for unscheduled phone inquiries. Nothing makes you rich or stops their misbehavior faster than sending a $200 bill for a 2-minute call that was essentially "did you see my email?" Special feature requests were tied to minimum spend contracts.

arp242 6y ago
Did you have a prior agreement for that? I'm not sure if it's either legal or ethical to do that without prior agreement, no matter how difficult they are.
- kenhwang 6y ago
  Yep, if there's no service/support contract I'm not doing customer service/support. Then it's simply minimum time billed and normal/after hours/emergency billing rates and definitions for what is considered an emergency (how much prior notice, how much time to respond). Very typical SLA stuff.
  - arp242 6y ago
    How will people know if they're going to be charged double though?
    - paulcole 6y ago
      It’s defined in the contract.
    - kenhwang 6y ago
      It's a courtesy to let them know the first time. Otherwise each call would be a line item on the month-end invoice with the call subject, the time/length of the call, and amount billed.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  Without a contract, an invoice is just a piece of paper. The worst thing they can do is not pay it.
  - aronpye 6y ago
    An invoice is a contract, you have to pay them
    - paulcole 6y ago
      As long as terms are set in advance. If they’re not and I call you on the phone for 1 minute and you send me a $200 invoice, I’m not paying it. Sue me and see if the invoice is a contract.
    - tomalpha 6y ago
      I don’t think that’s true. An invoice is just a formal request for payment. It doesn’t itself legitimise that request. Otherwise I could send you an invoice for $1m out of the blue and according to that logic you’d have to pay me. There must have been some agreement, most likely in the form of a contract, in advance, for you to have to pay that invoice. And even then, some companies employ large teams of people whose entire job is trying to avoid or delaying paying invoices in order to improve their cash flow.
    - jlokier 6y ago
      It actually isn't. An agreement with consideration is a contract. (Consideration means something of value is exchanged.) However the agreement is made. It could be on the phone, text, smoke signals, anything. Though if it's denied later you may have a hard time proving the contract was made. Usually an invoice is sent after an agreement. You have to pay those because you already made a contract to pay (written or not, formal or informal), and quite often an invoice provides formality that was lacking before, crystallising the expected amount. The act of paying it generally signifies final agreement to that amount. For business contracts, often an invoice is the first time the buyer sees the exact amount the seller is expecting, because of details that weren't hashed out in advance (no need). For example per-hour freelancing can be like that; the buyer learns the number of hours the seller claims to have worked from the invoice. But people dispute invoices all the time if they aren't expected or differ significantly from the amount expected.
Bootwizard 6y ago
Careful not to go too overboard for this. I won't say the company's name for fear that I may work there one day. At my last job, a large enterprise database provider wouldn't provide any support to us unless we agreed to pay them upwards of $60k a year for a product we weren't going to use. And we weren't exactly a small customer for them either, we just weren't as big as some of their others. Don't become the toxic one yourself!
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  At this point, if you are going to hire Oracle, the proverb of the Frog and the Scorpion applies.
  - Bootwizard 6y ago
    Surprise! It wasn't Oracle :)
    - winrid 6y ago
      MongoDB?
      - RandomBacon 6y ago
        Throwing out names doesn't help. Bootwizard shouldn't have even said it wasn't Oracle.
        true_religion 6y ago
        Technically true, but if they didn’t say it want Oracle then everyone would assume it was. I have never worked with a company that bought Oracle products, but I still have a bad experience from their presale calls.
    - mcv 6y ago
      I've got to admit, that was indeed a surprise. I really hope other DB vendors don't follow Oracle's example into toxic vendorship.
grwthckrmstr 6y ago
I was afraid to try this, because as someone else pointed out, what if they agree and now I'm stuck with a high-paying toxic customer. Yikes!
- eitland 6y ago
  @200 an hour, billed by the hour and counting from the first minute they have to be particularly toxic. Still I guess you should have your terms and conditions carefully though out.
  - thomasfedb 6y ago
    Irritation factor is an important billing metric. I very rarely say no to a job, I just price so that I'll be happy if they accept.
  - ecpottinger 6y ago
    When I did service call, we had a minimal charge for travel time (1 hour) with 1 hour increments. That way when they call for an service call where they were you knew it usually was important. Of-course, I did have one call that took me only 5 minutes to drive to the site and the three minutes to change the toner in the printer. The executive secretary who would not talk to me over the phone because she was so important suddenly found she would have to explain a two hour service call (1 hour travel, 1 minimum service time) to her boss. :)
- kenhwang 6y ago
  If you're truly stuck, then make it a certainty. That's where those $60k/yr upfront+overages support contracts come in handy and how a customer singlehanded funded your helpdesk team. Very few rich customers aren't a handful. Let them make you rich first, then if you're lucky, you'd be surprised how quickly you outgrow them and have all sorts of tools at your disposal to deal with them.
- paulcole 6y ago
  You’re not stuck with them longer than the terms of the contract. Leave an out and use it if the $200 1-minute phone calls aren’t worth it.
ganafagol 6y ago
And nothing pushes your app into oblivion faster than the bad reviews that you'll get in response. Be polite instead.
hnarn 6y ago
> Alternatively, charge them appropriately. A somewhat smarter pricing model, in my own opinion, is rather than charging someone $200 for a phone call, sell them "coupons" in advance where one coupon equals one support contact. When they have used up N percent of their available coupons, send them an automated e-mail and tell them that future contacts will be denied unless coupons are available. This way, you get the money up front, which is good. Customers that don't contact you a lot are also happy, because they won't need to "re-fill" for a long time -- and annoying customers that call you just to check if you got an e-mail will burn through their coupons in no time. This way, there is no explicit cost for a single phone call that can be challenged by the customer, it's simply an objective way of charging "support contacts", and it's up to the customer to minimize those contacts if they want to save money. What constitutes a contact is up to you, but in my mind it would make sense to classify "ticket creation" (not replies) or "phone call" both as separate contacts. This also makes tickets "worth" way more than a phone call, so you incentivize people to stop calling unless absolutely necessary.

arp242 6y ago

Did you have a prior agreement for that? I'm not sure if it's either legal or ethical to do that without prior agreement, no matter how difficult they are.

kenhwang 6y ago
Yep, if there's no service/support contract I'm not doing customer service/support. Then it's simply minimum time billed and normal/after hours/emergency billing rates and definitions for what is considered an emergency (how much prior notice, how much time to respond). Very typical SLA stuff.
- arp242 6y ago
  How will people know if they're going to be charged double though?
  - paulcole 6y ago
    It’s defined in the contract.
  - kenhwang 6y ago
    It's a courtesy to let them know the first time. Otherwise each call would be a line item on the month-end invoice with the call subject, the time/length of the call, and amount billed.
sbierwagen 6y ago
Without a contract, an invoice is just a piece of paper. The worst thing they can do is not pay it.
- aronpye 6y ago
  An invoice is a contract, you have to pay them
  - paulcole 6y ago
    As long as terms are set in advance. If they’re not and I call you on the phone for 1 minute and you send me a $200 invoice, I’m not paying it. Sue me and see if the invoice is a contract.
  - tomalpha 6y ago
    I don’t think that’s true. An invoice is just a formal request for payment. It doesn’t itself legitimise that request. Otherwise I could send you an invoice for $1m out of the blue and according to that logic you’d have to pay me. There must have been some agreement, most likely in the form of a contract, in advance, for you to have to pay that invoice. And even then, some companies employ large teams of people whose entire job is trying to avoid or delaying paying invoices in order to improve their cash flow.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    It actually isn't. An agreement with consideration is a contract. (Consideration means something of value is exchanged.) However the agreement is made. It could be on the phone, text, smoke signals, anything. Though if it's denied later you may have a hard time proving the contract was made. Usually an invoice is sent after an agreement. You have to pay those because you already made a contract to pay (written or not, formal or informal), and quite often an invoice provides formality that was lacking before, crystallising the expected amount. The act of paying it generally signifies final agreement to that amount. For business contracts, often an invoice is the first time the buyer sees the exact amount the seller is expecting, because of details that weren't hashed out in advance (no need). For example per-hour freelancing can be like that; the buyer learns the number of hours the seller claims to have worked from the invoice. But people dispute invoices all the time if they aren't expected or differ significantly from the amount expected.

Bootwizard 6y ago

Careful not to go too overboard for this. I won't say the company's name for fear that I may work there one day. At my last job, a large enterprise database provider wouldn't provide any support to us unless we agreed to pay them upwards of $60k a year for a product we weren't going to use. And we weren't exactly a small customer for them either, we just weren't as big as some of their others. Don't become the toxic one yourself!

MattGaiser 6y ago
At this point, if you are going to hire Oracle, the proverb of the Frog and the Scorpion applies.
- Bootwizard 6y ago
  Surprise! It wasn't Oracle :)
  - winrid 6y ago
    MongoDB?
    - RandomBacon 6y ago
      Throwing out names doesn't help. Bootwizard shouldn't have even said it wasn't Oracle.
      - true_religion 6y ago
        Technically true, but if they didn’t say it want Oracle then everyone would assume it was. I have never worked with a company that bought Oracle products, but I still have a bad experience from their presale calls.
  - mcv 6y ago
    I've got to admit, that was indeed a surprise. I really hope other DB vendors don't follow Oracle's example into toxic vendorship.

grwthckrmstr 6y ago

I was afraid to try this, because as someone else pointed out, what if they agree and now I'm stuck with a high-paying toxic customer. Yikes!

eitland 6y ago
@200 an hour, billed by the hour and counting from the first minute they have to be particularly toxic. Still I guess you should have your terms and conditions carefully though out.
- thomasfedb 6y ago
  Irritation factor is an important billing metric. I very rarely say no to a job, I just price so that I'll be happy if they accept.
- ecpottinger 6y ago
  When I did service call, we had a minimal charge for travel time (1 hour) with 1 hour increments. That way when they call for an service call where they were you knew it usually was important. Of-course, I did have one call that took me only 5 minutes to drive to the site and the three minutes to change the toner in the printer. The executive secretary who would not talk to me over the phone because she was so important suddenly found she would have to explain a two hour service call (1 hour travel, 1 minimum service time) to her boss. :)
kenhwang 6y ago
If you're truly stuck, then make it a certainty. That's where those $60k/yr upfront+overages support contracts come in handy and how a customer singlehanded funded your helpdesk team. Very few rich customers aren't a handful. Let them make you rich first, then if you're lucky, you'd be surprised how quickly you outgrow them and have all sorts of tools at your disposal to deal with them.
paulcole 6y ago
You’re not stuck with them longer than the terms of the contract. Leave an out and use it if the $200 1-minute phone calls aren’t worth it.

ganafagol 6y ago

And nothing pushes your app into oblivion faster than the bad reviews that you'll get in response. Be polite instead.

hnarn 6y ago

> Alternatively, charge them appropriately. A somewhat smarter pricing model, in my own opinion, is rather than charging someone $200 for a phone call, sell them "coupons" in advance where one coupon equals one support contact. When they have used up N percent of their available coupons, send them an automated e-mail and tell them that future contacts will be denied unless coupons are available. This way, you get the money up front, which is good. Customers that don't contact you a lot are also happy, because they won't need to "re-fill" for a long time -- and annoying customers that call you just to check if you got an e-mail will burn through their coupons in no time. This way, there is no explicit cost for a single phone call that can be challenged by the customer, it's simply an objective way of charging "support contacts", and it's up to the customer to minimize those contacts if they want to save money. What constitutes a contact is up to you, but in my mind it would make sense to classify "ticket creation" (not replies) or "phone call" both as separate contacts. This also makes tickets "worth" way more than a phone call, so you incentivize people to stop calling unless absolutely necessary.