What is the difference between support, training, and consulting?
Training
Training is conduced online via screen-sharing or in-person and is usually arranged in advance to teach staff about the use of CDM+. Training teaches Suran's best practices for how to use our products, but can be adjusted to your specific needs. In short, training answers the question:
How do I perform this task?
Consulting
Consulting is also conducted via screen-sharing or in person and is often project based. Consulting works directly with your specific situation and data by connecting you to CDM+ experts. These tasks can be small and simple, or large and complex. Consulting answers the request:
Help me achieve this result.
Support
Support can answer the same questions as training and consulting, provided they are on a small scale. Support can also help explain certain program behavior, provide technical assistance with installations, troubleshoot bugs or in general assist you accomplish your work in our software. Support answers the following questions/requests:
How do I perform this task?
Help me achieve this result.
Why does the system behave this way?
What determines if support becomes training or consulting and is therefore billable?
Ultimately Suran's support technicians determine if a support instance should be classified as training or consulting based on the content and length of resolving the issue. However, there are a few guidelines we also follow:
- Training is often explicitly arranged for new staff or product purchases and designated as "training" in advance
- Large-scale assistance with Accounting or Payroll issues tend to because consulting, usually based on the scope of the work
- Phone calls that exceed 30 minutes in length
As soon as a support technician determines an issue should be classified as consulting or training, we will communicate that designation to you to negotiate agreement of training/consulting and to arrange payment (including use of bundled training/consulting hours with your plan).