7 Reasons NOT To Offer Service Package Options

By Raffi Jamgotchian President/CTO of Triada Networks , ASCII member since 2008

When I started Triada Networks in 2008, I had to decide which billing model made the most sense for me. Since I knew that I didn’t want to trade dollars for hours, fixed-price plans seemed to make the most sense, which ultimately led me to embrace the concept of managed services.

Many in the industry provide multiple tiers of offerings (bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, etc.) with each tier having a different level of support commensurate with their pricing. The difficulty with tiered pricing models is that they are confusing and they focus on price rather than quality. In other words, it can become quite difficult for the client or prospect to determine which package is best for their business; especially since most will not understand the technology enough to make an informed decision. Thus, they’ll ultimately focus on price as the primary determiner.

Let’s take a “top down” look at this: Most managed services firms consider their top end offering their “All You Can Eat” package. This is the package that would include unlimited support, monitoring and management, backup and disaster recovery (BDR) with offsite recovery, security software and systems, consulting, budgeting, and possibly even some hardware components.  Basically it’s a combination of whatever you think delivers the best experience and level of support for the customer while driving your business margins.

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