Duane,The Software Maintenance Agreement (SMA) is a monthly fee ($29.99) that is for the continuing development of the Helios program. As long as you stay on the SMA you are entitled to future updates & upgrades for no additional cost. Active customers also receive free technical support as an added benefit.We used to have a toll free number and found that our technicians were spending an inordinate amount of time “training” the customers rather than providing technical support. Because our technicians were spending hours building sales codes, other customers who had legitimate technical issues were unable to get through. We now offer free training sessions on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of each month at our corporate location just outside of Chicago. Customers can spend the entire day getting trained in person while our technicians provide “technical support” on the phones.The only time you pay for the phone call is when you get right through to a technician. If all the techs are on calls the receptionist will put you in the queue and you will receive a callback on our dime. We feel that this is the fairest way to provide a very valuable service to our customers.Customer service is our top priority! If we are not doing our jobs in the development and support areas then people will just cancel their SMA. Since we do not charge for our software we need to maintain the highest level of service in order to maintain our customer base. While you can’t please all of the people all of the time, we are giving it our best shot. I hope this helps you understand why we do not offer a toll free number for support. If you have any further questions or concerns, please let me know. |