Every so often I get a mail telling me how MS Support was poor in one way or another.  Recently I have been getting the other type of e-mail - how GOOD Microsoft support is.  Yesterday, Paul sent me this e-mail:

David i found your email address on the sbsbpi.co.uk website, i thought it appropriate to drop you a mail asking you to pass on praise to the relevant people for the technical support i received from Microsoft today.

the problem was quite complicated and both support representatives who dealt with it seemed knowledgeable, thorough and also easy to get on with on, all the essential requirements for a telephone support engineer, lots of bad things are said about the support available from Microsoft but today i experienced something very different, please pass on my thanks to the SBS support team.

How nice it is to get these, but also in the forums, someone posted this:

http://uksbsguy.com/forums/thread/401.aspx

I have used Microsoft support a bunch of times over my entire career and a few times since I have been a small business owner such as yourself.

First of all, generally the level of support is very good.  You are paying a premium price but you do receive premium support.  I used support last week for a cost of £200 and it was worth every penny.  I knew before calling that it was not a Microsoft issue, but I needed some expert guidance (was not for an SBS system btw).

I put in another call last year for a problem which I believed was caused by a fault in the software and there was certainly no dispute and the money was refunded and a successful resolution was found.

So, it is worth it?  Depends how much of your own time you are prepared to spend and if the customer is willing to let you pass the cost on to them.

The key is to stop and think is your time better spent resolving an issue or spending the £200 to get a fix.  Only you can decide, but if you decide you need support, 1st go check out http://support.microsoft.com and search for any errors you might see and then you can see about getting paid for support from that page too.

ttfn

David