EllisLab Support Gets Even Better
When we launched EllisLab Support late last year, we announced 3 support plans: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. For each plan, we guaranteed we’d get that first response to you within a certain timeframe. That one change alone is a major improvement over the old support system, to say the least.
But even when we offer something great, that doesn’t mean we stop looking for ways to make it better, so several weeks ago we quietly tweaked our support system to bump up those guaranteed response times to offer even better service and see if we could still handle the support load. Even though we didn’t say a word about it, those of you using EllisLab Support must have noticed because the response from you has been awesome. Here’s just a sample:
If this is indicative of the new support system, I will be very happy paying for support over and above the old ‘free’ support — in fact, I would absolutely prefer it.
Thank you for your speedy and thorough work, Robin! Totally worth the
service package I bought! You are a star!
The test was quite a success, and now we’re excited to announce these permanent changes to EllisLab Support:
The Silver support plan now guarantees that first response in 1 business day instead of 2, Gold promises 4 business hours instead of 1 business day, and Platinum promises 1 business hour instead of 4.
One more important thing: When we announced EllisLab Support, we mentioned that every existing ExpressionEngine and MojoMotor license holder gets 3 months for free. If you haven’t redeemed your 3 free months yet, you’ve still got time to do it. Just add Silver Support to your cart in the store and complete the order as usual. The offer expires February 28th, so please make sure you’ve redeemed your 3 months of EllisLab Support before the end of this month. Nevermind!
Comments & Feedback
Had some expertise, patience and generosity through my first ever ticket. The results were impressive and fast. It was really worth my money. Service at its best. Merci.
Biscuiterie
I soon will be buying another license for a client website i’m building.
But i’m seriously questioning/baffled by what a $300 license actually encompasses/entices.
It used to say “Support is a feature” on the tin,
now i have to pay another $600 a year minimum, to get questions answered?
GDmac - expocom
So the three months free support is only going to be available from license purchase date after feb 28th? Yikes (the sound of another shoe dropping…). Most of that three months is going to be eaten up with the project sitting on the dev server. Support is most valuable to me when you have to do upgrades/updates, or server/hosting switches, when the inevitable bug bites you, or a third party incompatibility strikes, or new environments collide with old settings.
Why can’t the three months be redeemed whenever the dev sees fit? Much more value to the support system that way. Otherwise, I’ll just be doing one-month support knockoffs during the critical phase.
But the new time windows for response are nice…
wildrock
I think there might be a misunderstanding here, @wildrock. For first-time licenses purchased after November 25, 2012, the purchaser can redeem their free 3 months whenever they like. They don’t have to do it right away.
The notice above is just letting license holders who already had a license on their account before November 25, 2012 that their limited-time offer of 3 free months of support must be redeemed before the offer ends on February 28th.
Kevin Smith
After reading your support plan page, again… it still is about as murky as day old coffee…
So, let’s get this straight. Does “first time licenses” refer to the developer, or the business that buys the license, and then hires the developer? And if it is the latter, you’re not going to extend 3 months of free support to them because their developer has several licenses in his own account (this describes my freelancing model).
And if so, because I have previously purchased licenses, I have to charge my client more for support—if needed—because I won’t get any support access with their license purchase?
Or must I insist that I have to purchase the license and charge client upfront for some support that I may or may not need on their project?
See Kevin, it still is very murky. And so, you are right. There is a misunderstanding. I’m just not sure whose fault it is…
So to try and make it clear, if I get one new client every three months and they buy the license, I as the developer still have to purchase my own $49/month support plan? Or if I were to have the owner of the business give me access to his purchasing account (or he would demand it to get his free support), I could redeem the free support in his stead? Because that’s the question I’m going to get when I try and charge the business for support, if/when I need it, after they have assumed they get three months free.
I know that $147 (three months support) might not seem like much, but for a small business in a small community, every added expense adds up. Or has EllisLab forsaken the small community freelancer approach to development?
wildrock
Kevin, most often the support has gone in the other direction from here, but on the strength of your note and the thought of unusual client needs, I went to take up the free Silver offer.
I got as far as the $49 price being discounted to $0, and then was asked for my credit card details. I had already nearly stopped the signup because the offer sheet had declared I would get billed continuously after the 3 month period, but thought, no, they can’t mean that for the free grandfathering at least.
It seems you do mean it, and that this is also an attempt to get my financial information saved somewhere at Ellislab or a partner, which would be a quite questionable practice in this day of very widespread and determined criminally operated hacking networks.
What is the story you would like to tell here for Ellislab? At the minimum, I’d like to hear that I can buy one-offs or anything else in the future with full and ironclad guarantee that Ellis is not going to store my financial details, or have anyone else do it.
Thanks,
Clive
narration
What wildrock says. it feels a bit strange. I buy a license every month (or every other month) for a project (1000,- to 3000,- a year) but i don’t even get a T-shirt to wear, nor an EE-mug to drink coffe from, let alone, get some basic support for issues that might arise.
I’m very worried that the current support model will actually subvert any general knowledge-base where we might have found common answers to basic issues. I feel left alone by EllisLab and this very support model is community-undermining.
GDmac - expocom
Just trying to help here, @wildrock.
Let me start with this since I think it might get to the root of a lot of this confusion: Keep in mind that EllisLab Support is meant to support you, the designer/developer. It’s not support for your client directly.
So with that in mind…
It’s referring to the account that purchases the license, and it’s meant for the web professionals who build sites with EE. When a designer or developer purchases their first ExpressionEngine or MojoMotor license (the first license on their EllisLab.com account), they can take us up on the offer to get 3 months of free EllisLab Support. The point of the 3 free months of EllisLab Support is to make sure designers and developers get some help as they learn the ropes. It’s not meant to give you unlimited free support as long as you get a new client who buys a license every 3 months. (You shouldn’t be signing into someone else’s account anyway.)
That first-time license purchaser can redeem it whenever they like, but the offer is only for that first license purchase, not with every license purchased. And the same designer/developer/agency can’t just create a new account for every license to keep getting free support.
You don’t need a separate plan for each client, you just need one plan for yourself. EllisLab Support is one cost that gets you quick help for any site you work on. It’s sort of like the cost of the lease for your office space. Just as you wouldn’t add an invoice item for your office space, you wouldn’t do that for support either.
To be frank about it, EllisLab Support is for you, not your clients. They end up benefiting, of course, because we back you up when you get stuck. We make you look good. When you need help, we’ll swoop in and save the day, and then you can turn around and take all the credit.
Your clients are coming to you as an expert to build their sites and help them when something’s gone wrong. They shouldn’t be under the impression that they’re getting “free” support at all because they’re not going to be interacting with us directly anyway. We’re here to back you up when you get stuck. Just grab an EllisLab Support plan when you need it.
Kevin Smith
We never store your credit card details on our server, Clive. Not even during processing of the transaction. That’s all done through our credit card processor, and your credit card number never even touches our server. (And don’t worry, they’ve been audited by a PCI-certified auditor, and are certified to PCI Service Provider Level 1, the strictest certification available.)
For subscriptions like EllisLab Support, the credit card processor does require a credit card to be on file with them, but we’ve made it as easy as possible to cancel support when you’re done with it. And when your 3 months is almost up and your card is about to be billed, you’ll get an email from us letting you know it’s about to happen. That will give you an opportunity to cancel it without a single charge hitting your card.
Kevin Smith
After having had my 1st experiences with your new support back in November, through early January, I 100% agree your support is AWESOME!
Your representatives are knowledgeable, friendly and responsive.
Over the past year or so we started getting familiar with EE and the ExpressineEngine community and it has been a pretty smooth transition over to this new environment. I didn’t loose much time making the leap because along with the fact that you’ve created a good product, its matured enough so that there are a good amount of learning resources available out there. After years of web development I’m pretty accustomed to spending hours researching, digging through forums trying to find that 1 nugget of info I need to create a solution to a problem. So, when you offered the new support I was midway through one project and just finishing up another, I figured I’d make use of it right away. Your representatives really helped me build on my knowledge and offered some great suggestions to solve issues in ways I hadn’t thought of. I went out on a limb and asked ‘em if they would be willing to take a look at some of my other EE code which they had no problem doing, after which they offered me some great tips to enhance the end result of my project. I’ve saved so much time using your support and I’m spending much less time digging around in a million forums, it has been a great experience.
Thanks, I highly recommend!
Reuben
FlyDuo
Thanks, Reuben! That’s the kind of story I love to see. It’s why we do what we do.
Kevin Smith
You’re very welcome. As a user it’s 100% as good as you could hope it would be and you all deserve props for what you’re doing over there at EllisLab. I’m so happy to have made the switch over to the EE community as a whole.
FlyDuo
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