FAQ-Sales
What does my $$/month for backups buy me? Why are other services, such as a restore, extra money?
What exactly are you getting for your $30, $55, or $205 per month? This can be a confusing thing since any given customer will talk to more then one person and possibly get different descriptions of exactly what they are buying for their dollar. With that said, what is the $30/month actually getting you?
Your basic MONTHLY fee buys you remote technical support, a simple web interface to manage your backups (including doing your own restores), unlimited bandwidth and X amount of disk space on 2 of our servers. (the 2nd server is for extra protection) Why won't you come and do my restore for me at this cost? Data recovery and system restoration can be complicated things. It is completely out of the scope of our basic service. The basic problem we are trying to solve with the basic service is "Copy data from point A to point B securely for protection in the event of a disaster or event." Nothing more. This allows us to keep the costs of this program to a minimum.
As an added feature for our customers we make additional services available, such as one of our technicians doing a recovery. Due to the nature of this type of work it costs money. (technician on site, multiple applications, system configuration, etc) Our rates are extremely reasonable as compared to just about any consultant on the market for this type of work. Most of our competitors (in the backup/VPN space) don't even offer local support. The ones that do typically charge $150/hr and up.
What if I go over my monthly space 'limit'?
In this situation, your backups are perfectly safe and will continue to function. Where it will show up is on your next invoice. The amount your account costs is calculated on a monthly basis by looking at the amount of disk space you are using on our server. There is no hard limit and you will automatically be "upgraded" to the next level of account when you go over your current level.
To have an idea of how much space you are currently using, login to the secure web interface on the backup network and select the host you wish to see. Scroll down to the bottom of that host's informational page and look at the "New Files - Comp/MB" and "Existing Files - Comp/MB" columns. Add up ALL the numbers in those 2 columns to see how much disk space you are using. note: Apologies for not having a "total" appear in the table currently. We are working on this problem.
If the numbers don't mean much to you since our accounts are measured in GB, not MB, here is how to calculate it: 1GB = 1024MB. So a 2GB account ($25/month) is good for 2048MB worth of space.
Why do you send one of your technicians to do the setup rather then having a software package I install?
We could provide an installation package for this service, but have decided not to because of the complexity of the security in our service. One of the things that makes us different then other solutions of this type is the fact we've made NO exceptions when it comes to how we protect your data. Because of this, we prefer to be 100% certain that the software is installed and configured correctly, minimizing the chance of exposure for all of our customers. Considering the Total Cost of Ownership of our product, we think this is a fair requirement.
That said, there is every chance that we will release an "installation package" in the future. It is simply not planned at this point in time.
Do you have a referral system?
Short answer - YES! How does it work?
We define "Hot Leads" as someone whom has been passed to us with genuine interest. You've mentioned our product, told them what a great team we are, basically prepped the situation so that we are not bothering someone out of the blue. They contact us, or you've told us to contact them. Doesn't matter. We pay 1/2 of the first monthly fee for this type of situation, after the customer has been with us for 3 months. ($15 minimum to the referrer) Just to be clear, the conversation of the new customer with our salesperson should be no more then 60-90 minutes and primarily be to get the details about our product and determine how it fits in to their environment.
A "Warm Lead" is someone you think would be interested, but you have probably done nothing more then tell them you gave us their contact info. We WILL use your name as a reference point when we contact the customer. We pay $25 for this type of reference on all $50/month and larger accounts, after the new customer has been with us for 3 months.
"OK, I don't want to pass leads but I have a brick-and-mortar store and I'd like to stick up some of your brochures in my shop." This falls into the same category/rules as a "Warm Lead".
"So who decides if it's a 'Warm' or 'Hot' lead?" Ultimately, the Account Executive (AE) who winds up over the new customer. Our AE's take this process very seriously (we're not trying to rip anyone off!) but mistakes can be made. If you have a gripe and think a referral fee paid to you was too incorrect, please contact our customer support department and we will make every effort to get the situation straightened out.
Why would I pay you for a validation test?
That depends on your situation. Some customers, who have a high level of technical skill probably don't need us to do this for them unless they simply don't have the time. For most of our customers though, they simply do not have the level of technical expertise (or patience) to be able to do this function on their own. What is the risk of NOT doing it? You will have no idea whether or not your backups are actually any good. (this is true of ANY type of backup)
We offer a couple of reasonably price alternatives for doing this testing for you.
- We can help you to setup a step-by-step process that you follow and do yourself. This involves researching how your applications are setup and how restores should be done with them. We use 4 hours as the estimate for length of time to setup this service, but it will vary by customer, depending on your application count and complexity.
- We can simply do the testing for you. Basically the same thing as step one, but WE do the testing for you. We wind up having a repeatable process we can follow for you at an agreed to interval or as emergencies come up and you need a restore done.
Industry recommendations vary for how often you should do validation tests and range from Monthly to annually. We recommend a minimum of every 6 months doing a FULL restoration test. It is worth doing a random subset restore on a monthly basis in addition to this. (pick a couple of random files, restore them, make sure they look how you expect)
How is my bill calculated?
We add up the total amount of disk space on our system that you utilize. To do this calculation for yourself, look at the "Compression Summary" section of your host page on the backup web site. Add up the entire 'Comp/MB' column for both 'Existing' and 'New' files. This gives you your total space in MB. Multiply by 1024 and you get your GB size.
In the future (early Q207) we will have a reporting tool in place to do this for you automatically.
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