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rev. 18/05/2011

Service/Support Philosophy

At Managing Energy Inc. (MEI), client support is central to our business.  We believe that our clients will only continue to subscribe to the ManagingEnergy service if they are getting the benefits of using it.  And they will only use it once they have become engaged, knowledgeable users.  It takes strong training and support to get them there.

 

Supporting SaaS

Software as a Service (SaaS) applications can be supported far more effectively than traditional software, because we’re overseeing your application.  ManagingEnergy logs errors, if and when they occur, it also generates an audit trail of all activity on client accounts.  These audit trails help our technicians to see who did what and what went wrong.  We can then fix any bugs in ManagingEnergy code without you needing to reinstall.  The same holds true for new software features, we install them, and you simply make use of them.

 

Support Modalities

MEI supports subscribers through Online Forums, Training Videos, Online Support, and a Telephone Support Hotline as detailed below.

Online Forums

Most questions can be answered by searching our Online Forums (available to paid subscribers, users can access directly from ManagingEnergy, or log in at http://support.managingenergy.com, there will be a prompt to log in if not already authenticated), which you can access through most common web browsers, 24x7.

The Online Forums includes the following areas:

 

Training Videos

Training videos of common solutions and explanation of technical features are available for viewing at http://www.managingenergy.com/library/videos.html or directly from YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/managingenergy?gl=CA&hl=en

 

Online Help Desk

If an answer can’t be found online, the user can initiate a Help Desk Ticket to MEI or post a new thread for help in the Online Community Forums at any time.

The preferred method of submitting a problem is through the Online Help Desk as it is available 24x7 and currently staffed by the largest number of people who can help resolve the issue.

 

 

Standard Support Hours

Our Standard Support Hours are from 9am to 5pm, M-F, Eastern Time with the exception of Friday afternoons in July and August when support stops at 11:30am.  These hours can be extended at additional cost above the regular subscription.

 

Issue Priority Levels

New support issues are assigned a Ticket # as soon as received, and are prioritized according to severity.  The priority levels and their relative severity and importance are described as follows:

The goal is to resolve incidents marked “High” within 2 business days.  90% of High Priority Tickets are resolved in under this timeframe.

Typically Normal Issues will be resolved within five business days

While an end user can select the severity level when submitting a ticket support agents may change the Priority Level to more closely match the above definitions.

 

Help Ticket Escalation

Managing Energy Inc. shall use commercially reasonable efforts to resolve problems quickly and effectively.  As MEI escalates its efforts, MEI shall deploy additional staff and resources as needed.

If MEI requires the guidance or intervention of Customer, for any reason, to successfully resolve an issue, the service level time for that issue will be put on hold until Customer responds.

 

Feature Requests

Our corporate philosophy is focused on timely response to client suggestions.  We believe that the solution should change to match client business practices and needs rather than the client’s practices changing to match the capabilities of the software application.  A client's needs, and the functional requirements to respond to those needs, are evolving quickly.  We recognize there are always new features that could be added, and we are continually receiving suggestions through our online support forums.  When a suggestion is received, we discuss it internally and place it into one of two broad categories:

Tickets resulting in feature requests are documented and then closed from the end users perspective.  Internally feature requests are discussed with the Product Manager who ultimately decides whether or not the new feature becomes part of the development plan and at what priority.  Those feature requests deemed beneficial to a broad user base are more likely to be added.

Broadly applicable suggestions:  These are enhancements that apply to most, or all, of our clients, and that improve the service for a large number of users.  These suggestions are prioritized for inclusion and rolled into our ongoing service development plans based on overall customer priority.  All ManagingEnergy clients will receive the benefit of broadly applicable suggestions from other clients as they are implemented.

Client-specific suggestions:  These are features that address a narrow process need (e.g. a custom report, a custom data storage form, some sort of legacy support).  These are features that we would not expect to make widely available to other users.  In these cases, we will quote the development on a guaranteed fixed fee, based on our internal billing rates.  As always, the API allows our clients to customize appearance and functionality to their own needs.

 

Support Provider

Tier 1 support may be outsourced to a channel partner, such as Efficiency Engineering Inc., with a staff of engineers and technologists and many years experience using the system.  This arrangement has the advantage that our support staff are buildings’ professionals with a deeper understanding of building systems and energy management / conservation than a typical software support bureau would have.

 

Support Pricing

Within a subscription, ManagingEnergy allows for Named Users to contact Tier 1 support through our online ticket system (preferred) or by phone .  Named Users, often system administrators or energy analysts, make use of a wide range of features.  Users have more limited requirements and make use of a narrower range of features as appropriate for their jobs.  Named Users are the system experts within their organizations, who provide internal support to their own Users, so Managing Energy Inc., or possibly a Channel Partner, provides a higher degree of support to Named Users.
 

 

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