Buy Support for NewsReady for Windows
If you are a customer or are interested in becoming one, you can call our sales department to provide a service contract quote. WireReady only provides support under service contracts.
Note: Customers who use more than one WireReady software product receive up to 70% off the prices shown. Prices are shown for what support costs if this is the only product you will be using.
WireReady offers help desk support and software upgrades and patches for its customers around the world with the following plans:
SILVER SUPPORT
Silver support provides Monday through Friday 9am-5pm EDT via our help desk accessible via (800) 833 4459. International customers may reach the help desk by calling (785) 542-2173. Silver support also includes password-protected access to the tech support area of our website, where there is Documentation/Manuals, Frequently Asked Questions and free Downloads/Upgrades.
WireReady rarely obsoletes its products, rather, we strive to keep improving them. Other companies make you buy new software every few years - we don't.
PRICE
$295/year and higher depending on size of system
Please call for current price offered for your system. Service rates range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year depending on the product(s) and add-ons in use, number of licensed machine(s), locations, and level of service desired.
GOLD SUPPORT
Gold Support provides the same service as the Silver Suppor plan - but the availability of our service technicians is expanded to 24 hours per day - 7 days per week - 365 days per year - including holidays.
PRICE
$495/year (not per month) and higher depending on size of system
Please call for current price offered for your system. Service rates range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year depending on the product(s) and add-ons in use, number of licensed machine(s), locations, and level of service desired.
PLATINUM SUPPORT
Platinum support includes all the services included in the silver and gold plans plus:
- We will help maintain your backups.
- We will perform all your upgrades and provide free feature training upon request.
- We will also provide help with Anti-Virus, Windows Service Pak and hardware issues.
- If you use automation, we'll maintain all your automation logs/playlists/record schedules.
- If you use our web service, we'll provide free web design changes.
- If you use our sales system, we'll provide free new business database updates.
PRICE
$1295/year (not per month) and higher depending on size of system
Please call for current price offered for your system. Service rates range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year depending on the product(s) and add-ons in use, number of licensed machine(s), locations, and level of service desired.
How Support Works
WireReady offers support via service contracts. Service contracts provide help desk technical support, and free software upgrades and patches (maintenance). Most products (unless otherwise noted) provide one free year of our Silver Support plan with your purchase. 24/7 Plans are available at a higher cost. When a customer requires assistance, they call an 800 number where an attendant will take your information down and have a technician call you. We take calls in the order they were received according to your plan level. For example, Platinum customers are always called first, followed by Gold, then Silver. For all customers, we continue to maintain an average call back of under 15 minutes.
We appreciate the special nature of broadcasting, and we encourage customers to give us an idea of the severity of their problem. In extreme cases, it is not uncommon for us to put you in immediate contact with someone, even if we have to go all the way up to our president and founders office to get someone who can help you now.
We take our support very seriously. We log and track all incoming calls. We track the time you called and the time we call you back. We even track the duration of the call and whether or not the need was solved. In this fashion, we maintain personal histories and technical details on all our customers. WireReady is a small company and typically only has a half dozen support technicians you will deal with along with our president and founder. You will not find yourself wasting time with level 1, level 2, and level 3 type help desk organizations that larger companies often use.
With WireReady, you won't ever be working with someone who isn't an expert on your system - period. Currently, the average tenure for our front-line support department is six years, and currently you will not be talking to anyone with less than four years experience with our company. For us, solving a problem isn't nearly as important as how fast the problem is solved. At night and on weekends we use an automated attendant that pages out our technicians on call. For added security and peace of mind, during nights and weekends, the manager's forwarded telephone number is provided to callers so that if the person on call doesn't immediately call you or they can't help, you are able to reach a manager. Every WireReady customer knows that if at anytime anyone on our team can't solve your problem or say yes to any question you have, our president and founder is waiting to hear from you.
How Upgrades Work
First and most importantly - they are FREE. Any year you have a Silver, Gold or Platinum plan in effect, you have free access to download our latest and best features and versions for any product you have purchased. Other companies tend to obsolete their products every two to three years forcing expensive upgrade purchases. With WireReady, we don't generally do this. We went 15 years on our DOS line of products and never did that once. We hope to do the same with our Windows line and we're going 7 years strong with this philosophy in mind. We won't change the name of our news system and we won't suddenly add a 64, 128 or other number on the end as an excuse to make you buy something new. If you start with NewsReady version 5 in 2005, there's very little chance you won't be using version 10 in 2010 and the software will have cost you nothing other than a year's help desk support fee.
WireReady maintains all software versions and history on our password protected web site. Each year we have two versions of our software maintained. Versions that have a 0 after the decimal are in essence the previous year's release with NOTHING but small patches to indididual lines of code as our large customer base reports back with minor bugs. For example in 2005, if you are using version 5.0 you are using the version customers were using the previous year that has had nothing but minor bug fixes since January of this year. Likewise, if you are using version 4.0, that is the 2004 version and you'll find we still maintain that plus any patches that we have done to it as well. If, for example, you upgrade to the latest 4.0xx version, you're using code that's been in the field for 2+ years and has had nothing but minor fixes done as customers report minor and often very rare occurring malfunctions in the software.
We generally patch a version for up to 24 months. Customers appreciate knowing that with our systems (if you aren't looking for new features), you can safely upgrade to a later version knowing you'll get virtually nothing but bug fixes without the chance of new bugs caused by new features. However, because we are always ready and willing to add new features for free for our customers, we actively develop our code each year. The .5 version (for example 5.5) is the same version as 5.0 PLUS new features that continue to be added, plus any bugs we've also patched in 5.0. 5.5 becomes 6.0 in January of 2006. In order to make sure 6.0 has plenty of field usage before the new year begins, about 3 months prior to the end of 2005 we stop adding new features to 5.5 and give dozens and dozens of our customers a chance to verify it's excellent in every way for the new year.
So depending on your needs and philosophy you can be a year behind, current, or ahead of the curve with our software and unlike other companies you won't find yourself holding your breath when you upgrade. If you're on 5.0 right now, you can rest assured that through at least the end of this year, if anyone finds a bug, and you want the patch, you can get that patch, and just that patch without turning your life upside down. There are always exceptions to any rule, but this is how we manage our versions.
We also provide version history reports for these tracks on our download page so you can see every single change we've made.
Are Catastrophic Events Covered?
What happens if you let your service contract expire?
WireReady does not penalize customers who skip a year or two and decide to renew a plan either for receiving help or to get our latest and greatest version. If the need for help is fairly routine and doesn't require a complete reinstallation of the product because you've lost your hardware, drives or something on that magnitude, there is no extra charge other than the basic renewal. We'll help you immediately and you'll have coverage for a full 12 months as well as access to our latest and best versions.
There are a couple things to keep in mind if you let coverage lapse and you suddenly need support in a hurry. If you do not have support coverage in effect for night time, weekend or holiday help, and you suddenly need it - you will have to purchase or upgrade to at least a Gold plan. If you can wait until the next business day, you can call then and renew a Silver plan, which is significantly less. If your support has lapsed and you want to renew, we can only help you after we receive payment, so credit cards are gladly accepted (VISA/MC/AMEX/DISC). If you do not have coverage and need immediate help day or night, please have your credit card ready. There are no exceptions to this rule. We cannot provide service in advance of payment.
Service contracts include help for any reason, including lightening strikes, blown hard-drives, even if you lose your system and have to install from scratch. We always encourage our customers to backup critical files, which makes our job easier. For technical problems we suspect have nothing to do with our software, but those problems are hampering the functionality of our software, we will help. For example, we will help pin-point and or help prove what may be defective in terms of hardware that requires replacement, and/or we will help provide assistance with basic Windows operating system issues.
However, for non-WireReady software problems, once we pin-point the source of trouble and recommend a course of action, it then becomes the responsibility of the station to have that work performed. If WireReady provided the hardware, then we will provide such services by shipping replacement parts and providing phone support for station personnel to affect those changes. But if the problem lies with customer supplied equipment, we will reach a point where we expect the customer to perform the work and then call us back. At that point, we will help adjust the software to work with any new hardware or changes made to the computer.
However if you do not have a service contract, and you have one of these catastrophic events, you cannot just renew a support plan after the problem to be restored. In addition to the service contract renewal, we will charge a restoral fee when substantial work appears to be required in addition to the basic renewal. Restoral fees are much higher for night and weekend work than M-F regular hours. For this reason, our service contracts are a very good value. For one fixed fee, your station has a life line via our 800 number to get assistance on the phone to help you deal with ANY problem that impedes your ability to use our product. Complete re-installations of the software often add a minimum charge of $250, automation systems start at $500.
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