Annual software support and maintenance for enterprise software is a cost that many companies have to face on a yearly basis. Companies can easily spend millions of dollars on software support and maintenance contracts every year, resulting in a significant strain on IT budgets and man-hours. Software support provided by the software vendor also typically forces very expensive and sometimes unnecessary upgrades or migrations along with customer service support that may not be top-notch.

Many organizations are pleased with their software solution, but less so with their solution’s maintenance plan. Companies want to get their money’s worth as far as value goes and should feel free to choose a vendor that will meet their needs. This is where a perfectly viable and proven choice comes into place: a third-party support provider.

When choosing third-party support there are three principal benefits that a company stands to receive. These are responsive service, personalized and tailored software support solutions, and cost-effectiveness. These three elements are probably three of the most important when it comes to software support (or, really, any type of support for that matter). You have to be able to depend on your support team and trust the services they are providing for you. And of course all of this should be provided at a cost that will fit your company’s budget.

High-quality third-party support provides responsive service, which is a primary necessity to have from any software support provider. With traditional software vendors, response times can be long and access to technical experts can be limited. Third-party support companies are geared more towards client satisfaction and delivering high-quality ultra-responsive service. Another feature of top-notch third-party support services is that they offer personalized support solutions. Unlike traditional software vendors, who usually only offer one-size fits all solutions, third-party support offers flexible and accommodating system support to fit your needs; for example, third-party support providers may provide fixes for your customized code — a service typically not provided by standard software vendor support programs.. The last benefit and probably the most important is cost-effectiveness. Deciding to work with third-party support can mean saving around 50 percent in annual support fees. And when dealing with enterprise-class software systems, a 50-percent savings is considerable. With most third-party support vendors there are no forced upgrades, migrations or support penalty fees.

Software support should be accommodating and the cost should equal the value. Third-party support offers an array of benefits and is a viable option for any company that feels as if they are paying too much for their system support and maintenance.