I would hope that the tech support model is there for the customers and not as a means for revenue, which it appears to be, by the current billing model.
I agree with this sentiment, though I do understand that the support team's time and expertise is valuable and they do deserve some reasonable compensation for their help.
As mentioned by others before, a better FAQ system, as well as a good Knowledge Base, & improved documentation would decrease the need for tech support tickets.
Unfortunately, if the support model is largely considered a means of revenue, this may never happen, as the more free info available the less potential revenue. *
When I purchased CS-Cart a bit over a year ago, I was incredibly cost sensitive ... I am less so now, but am still very conscious of getting the most for my money. Support seemed to me to be very costly as my questions were occasional and very simple issues that I felt should have been handled via a knowledgebase of some sort as they seemed the sort of thing many would have asked before me. I still feel strongly that a FAQ needs to be developed covering the newbie-level questions, as many beginners are almost certainly not earning anything from their shops if they've even launched a shop yet.
Thru experimentation and avoiding paid support I've learned a lot, which has been very valuable experience and has given me a good foundation / basic working knowledge of CS-Cart / PHP / Smarty Templates. Now my questions are far more complex, and support makes much more sense to me.
I am getting close to the end of my 1st month of paid support. In all honesty, it paid for itself with the first issue in terms of "head-scratching time". Though the time I spent finding my way around CS-Cart was very valuable as it got me 'up to speed' enough I could make significant modifications to templates, the time saved by asking support has been equally valuable. I'm going to take a short break for the holidays, but I intend to sign up for 3 more months just after the first of the year to cover final issues and to ensure the transition from my current site to CS-Cart goes smoothly. I know it will be worth the money. After that I expect I'll only need occassional help and a by-ticket support plan would be very desirable however I expect that would cost me more in the end than just buying another month of support.
FYI - support is basically limited to a few types of issues:
- explaining functionality
- explaining minor modifications to template files
- fixing bugs
This is probably as it should be, you can't expect support to customize your shop for you. You do have to be very conscious of how you ask a question as if a change requires any additional PHP coding or significant change in functionality your question will not be answered and you will be referred to their quote department. This happened to me a lot until I figured out how to ask questions and what not to ask. Don't ask too much in one ticket either, or you'll likely only get a partial answer.
Overall I am very pleased with the support provided, they have saved me hours and hours of head scratching which is well worth the $45 I paid.
* I do strongly feel that a FAQ needs to be developed covering most-common questions, and have very limited hopes that the CS-team will commit to doing this any time soon. It would be very helpful in the mean time if we all would post fixes to issues that are probably common for beginners when we resolve them for ourselves or when they are asked on the forum. In time, perhaps a FAQ can be developed from that.
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