ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the the issue of customer support. The comments relate principally to the situation in the UK but also include some discussion of the US practice. The question of maintenance costs is discussed. It can come as a big shock to some managers the sums of money that have to be annually committed to both software and hardware maintenance. In times of economic crisis, the question inevitably arises - ‘Do we really need it?’ Finally the role of the User Group and what it can achieve, both on the local and the national level will be commented on. Dynix (UK) used to operate a system of account managers. Each site, on installation, was assigned an account manager who was responsible for their well being. In practice it was very difficult to get a hold of your account manager who was, inevitably, out of the office, busy installing yet more Dynix sites.
