You may be thinking that Oracle Support isn’t too different to third-party support (other than the 50% drop in price). In fact, the difference between the two support models is quite dramatic.
The holy grail of Oracle Support (or any support contract for that matter) is the service level agreement. This tells you exactly what kind of service you can expect for the amount you pay.
You’ll be forgiven for thinking an SLA is a very simple agreement, outlining when you can expect a response and a resolution for each query raised. In reality, Oracle has made this very simple concept rather difficult to understand (on purpose). Here’s how Oracle’s SLAs match up to ours…
When you submit an incident report through My Oracle Support, you have no clear estimate on when you can expect a response from them, much less a resolution. And depending on the severity of the incident, you may be risking loss of revenue during this agonising waiting period of undetermined duration.
Incident management should be your support provider’s top priority, which is why we commit to SLAs on both response and resolution times. Each incident raised is allocated a level of impact and a rate of urgency (High, Medium, or Low). This defines the time frame for when you can expect a response, and when you can expect a resolution.
We believe in honesty and openness. Our SLAs are the promise we make to our customers; you have an expectation, and we will work hard to meet it.
Once you have submitted an incident report through My Oracle Support, it is likely that the issue will bounce around several people in Oracle’s support teams. This only adds to the time necessary to potentially resolve it and doesn’t invoke a feeling of trust or dependability towards the vendor.
Then, when you receive your response, it may well advise that you need to upgrade in order to get the support you need. If you’re lucky, you’ll be directed towards a self-help guide so you can resolve the issue yourself.
Oracle has, for many years, loaded My Oracle Support with knowledge base articles that its customers can search to find common faults and download patches to fix the problem themselves. This is effectively Oracle transferring the responsibility (and cost) for fixing issues over to the customers, while the vendor can do little or nothing else.
And once Oracle has provided this “service” the vendor will likely close the incident report for you.
The ‘do it yourself’ approach may work for low-priority incidents, provided your in-house teams have the necessary expertise. But in times of emergency, you may not have the time/experience/patience to search for an answer online (and this lack of service is certainly not what you’re paying for). You need the reassurance that your incident will be managed by a team of experts.
That’s why, when you submit a report to us, you can expect it to be resolved without an upgrade or self-help guide. Unlike Oracle Support, our patches are tailored to your specific system and any customisations you may have in place.
We do also offer our own knowledge base, with tens of thousands of support articles and details on how to fix incidents. But, our first response is to work on the fix and provide the answer, not tell you to go and find it yourself. And why would you, when we commit to providing an excellent support service – like any true support partner should?
When Oracle closes an incident report, the vendor likes to think that’s the end of the matter. But there is more to support than simply resolving issues.
On a broader level, it’s important for your organisation to know how efficiently incidents are being solved, if there are any outlying issues still unresolved, and if there are any patterns in the problem. Has this incident occurred before? Is it likely to happen again?
That’s why, as part of our standard third-party support service, we also provide:
Monthly or quarterly meetings
You can decide the regularity of meetings with a dedicated account manager. They will discuss your overall satisfaction with our services, the ‘health’ of your account, and any actions needed to maintain or improve it.
You can also meet with a service delivery manager who will discuss previous incidents, outstanding issues, identify and manage any service improvements, and any next steps.
Weekly support calls
If you wish, our support team can contact you each week to go through any open tickets and actions necessary to resolve/improve them, which can be hugely important if you have high priority incidents open with us and need regular updates.
Real-time reporting
In line with our transparent approach, our SLAs are embedded within our Remedyforce Service Desk system. You can log in and automatically assess up-to-date statistics on our performance.
| Service | Oracle Support | Support Revolution |
|---|---|---|
| Service requests | Yes | Yes |
| 24/7 support | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud services | Yes | Yes |
| Functionality patches | Recent products only | All products |
| Legal & regulatory patches | Recent products only | All products |
| Security patches | Quarterly | Within 48 hours |
| SLAs: Response | Limited | Yes |
| SLAs: Resolution | No | Yes |
| Support for customisations | No | Yes |
| Support for performance issues | No | Yes |
| Interface support | No | Yes |
| Monthly service reports | No | Yes |
| Account management meetings | No | Yes |
| Assigned primary contact | No | Yes |
We appreciate Oracle customers’ frustrations when it comes to raising an incident report, especially when you factor in how much you’re paying in support fees. That’s why organisations like yours should investigate third-party support as a viable option. You can access an enhanced level of service, but for 50% less than your previous support bill.
However, we are aware that CIOs and other IT leaders may hesitate when considering third-party support as an alternative, because it does mean no longer having access to My Oracle Support. To some, as we understand it, My Oracle Support is their ‘lifeline.’
But when you factor in the key differences, and the support you’re receiving in return for the amount you’re paying – how reliable do you consider that lifeline to be?
You may be wondering; as a third-party provider, how can we protect your systems, or provide updates in line with legislative changes? Surely, better service for a better price comes with some kind of compromise?
But, with Support Revolution, there is no compromise on security, or quality of service. If you’d like to find out how we protect your systems and keep you compliant – both without leaving you waiting for patches – you can read our services guides:
Alternatively, if you’re interested in pursuing third-party support and would like to know just how much you could save with us, try our free-to-use savings calculator:
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