Software support and maintenance is a form of insurance

I bet you have insurance for your home and office, but do you have any for your bespoke software application?

Nobody likes paying for insurance, but we do want the certainty and peace of mind that it provides. In the event of an incident, we’re glad that we’re covered and able to resume normality as quickly as possible.

If you have a web application that your business relies on, it pays to have somewhere to turn in the event of a problem.

We all hope that our software is perfect, that it never crashes, or has any bugs. We want it to be intuitive for every user without needing any training. Yet in reality, things do go wrong from time-to-time, and people need help and advice to get back to work.

I think of support and maintenance as a form of proactive insurance. You want the peace of mind to know that the issue is taken care of in the event of a problem, the issue will be taken care of quickly and without fuss. When there is a problem, often time is of the essence to be back up and running. You can’t afford to waste time looking around for someone to help when your staff are sitting around idle. Finding someone who can help fast means paying high rates for priority service. And worst of all, it will take longer to solve than you think.

The incoming rescuer is working in the dark on a codebase they’ve never seen before. They have to understand how, usually complex business logic, is supposed to work and what went wrong before that can attempt to fix it. There is a much higher risk of further unintended side-effects. All the while, they have a worried business owner breathing down their neck, wanting to know how fast they’ll be back in business.

It’s far less hassle to pay a simple monthly fee and know that someone has your back to keep your business humming.

Have you got a Ruby on Rails application that’s critical to your business? Do you want to sleep peacefully knowing that your staff have somewhere to turn if any problems arise? Contact us to see if we are a good fit for you.