[Hidden-tech] What to charge for emergency support ?

[Rick Roberts]

Hi Andy.

When I managed a 24x7 support team we thought it fair to pay them a 
flat fee of $100 to be "on call" for the weekend, Friday 6pm to Monday 
8am. If they got called we paid them 2x their normal hourly rate for 
the time they worked, including travel into the office if the problem 
couldn't be solved remotely. We had four people in the team though, so 
each person only had to work one weekend a month. This was a level I 
support team, so if the problem wasn't simple they called a level II 
engineer.

The support staff were not senior engineers though, so your rates 
should be higher. The structure seems reasonable, but set your fee high 
enough to make it worth your while. Some number of dollars to be on 
call (whether you get a call or not) and then an hourly rate if you get 
a call.

Good luck with it.

Rick
_________________________________________________________
Fredrick W. Roberts
IT Project Manager

On May 3, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Andy Klapper wrote:

>    ** Be a Good Dobee and help the group
>    ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>    ** Remember you must be counted to post .
>
> I just got off the phone with one of my clients and they wanted to 
> know what
> I would charge to provide emergency support for one of their products 
> for
> one of their major customers.
> Based on the conversation it looks like they are thinking about a 
> weekly fee
> to have a beeper (though what's the point of a beeper when you have 
> cell
> phones?) attached to my hip and then a per call fee for after hours 
> (7pm ->
> 7am weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday).  This would be in 
> addition to
> any hourly changes.  So if they call at 4am I get paid x plus whatever 
> time
> I put in (at a higher rate?)  If things can wait until 7am ->7pm then 
> the
> client gets charged my normal rate.
> As further background, I am a senior software engineer specializing in
> TCP/IP based server applications written in C++.  Over the course of 
> the
> last year I've ended up taking over the real time portion of an 
> existing
> product of my client's through repeated enhancements.
> The questions are;
> * Does the structure that they propose seem right?  (Seems reasonable 
> to me,
> but I've never done this before and want to avoid any gotchas that 
> others
> may have learned the hard way).
> * What would reasonable rates be for wearing a beeper, getting a call 
> at 4am
> in the morning, and then for performing the work?  (2x normal rate, 
> 3x, 5x?)
> * Do I want to be the first responder or have somebody else look at the
> problem first?  (I'm thinking no, I'd rather sleep if possible).
>
> I look forward to hearing all of your experiences and advice on this
> delicate issue.
>
> Andy Klapper
> Asgard Technology Group, LLC
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>
> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion 
> list.
> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3174 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20050503/d195bd2a/attachment-0010.bin