As recently as four days ago, Rogers has announced a new business-level technical support service called TecXpert for Business. Coming after the creation of a consumer service simply called TechXpert, one would presume this is working out for Rogers. I was more than concerned with Rogers’ first offering and thought it might be worth taking a look at TechXpert for Business might have in store.

Billed as a 24 hour, 7 days a week service, TechXpert for Business appears to be a re-priced version of the remote support program that Rogers started with TechXpert. With plans that start at $19.99 per user, per month, Rogers looks to apply a cookie-cutter wireless pricing model to IT support services. I find it rather unusual, but perhaps there is merit there.

Looking at the different levels of service they offer, immediately you see how unclear they are. In the prior text, Rogers describes the cost as “$19.99 per user, per month”, but the “Options and Support” page simply says $19.99 per month. Nothing else. Wouldn’t something like this deserve the kind of specificity most businesses run on?

There more troubling features here. I have not yet learned of how they work with clients, but I can deduce a number of issues Rogers will run into when attempting a hands-off type of support like this:

1. The $19.99 tier appears to be simply a “maintenance” service. My guess is that you’ll be funnelled into a one-time cost to get a “problem” fixed. Rogers likely defines what a “problem” is. The phrase “On-site support through our remote connection” is not clearly indicative of what you might receive.

2. The $27.99 “Whole Office Support” tier appears to imply they may physically attend your office and fix issues (if required). Given an office of 10 users, this is $306.21 a month, taxes included. You’ll likely pay this whether or not a call is made to Rogers. When Calwell does not attend to a customer’s site for service, the customer pays nothing.

3. If this is remote-only support, the “One Time Advanced Fix” would seem seriously out-of-touch with reality. They mention virus removal [1] and O/S re-installs [2], both with a degree of physical activity depending on the severity of need.

Perhaps the most troubling thing about this service is that there are currently no details available on Rogers greater terms website [3]. With the service now at least 4 days old, I would have expected the terms to be available on the announcement. Is a contracted period required here? Rogers appears to have left a number of details off their website.  The complexities of this service cleary beg more details on how they plan to handle variations.

I generally tell clients (and prospective clients) to steer clear of services like this. When your company faces a serious and troubling problem, you want to support services that can fully meet your needs – not raise questions. If you’ve had experience with TechXpert for Business, please do offer your thoughts below.

1. Try cleaning a bad rootkit remotely, that’s not happening
2. A clean reinstallation of an OS almost always guarantees you’ll be sitting in front of the machine
3. You’re redirected from text found on the TechXpert for Business description page