SciBit offers a default free support service on all our products, both to end-users and technical administrators alike. This free support service:

• Is of high quality
• Manned, if possible, 24/7
• Has as an objective a maximum 24 hour turnaround time (from initial submission to response to the issue).

The free support service utilizes a huge array of systems to obtain the primary aim of having satisfied customers. Some of these systems include:

• Automated & Auto-analysis Email - This system receives the initial customer email, analyze the content and replies immediately with articles, FAQ's, and forum posts which are rated and relevant to the email's contents.
• Online Help - This system is a huge searchable collection of technical and user manuals for all the products. Any customer can therefore find their information easily and quickly using a Google search
• Forum - This online system carries a large number of articles, posts and support replies to queries and suggestions on the products. It is also SciBit's "live" interface to the customers.
• Campus - This system is an interactive training facility based around the normal "Course", "Teacher/Presenter/Moderator" and "Student" concepts. It not only allows for anyone to add a public course and have students subscribe to the course, but also has facilities for private courses, paid-for courses, courseware, ex. ebooks, links, course material, etc.
• Help Desk - This is a public section of our project management hosted site which allows for any customer to add/log any issues (bugs, features, suggestions) directly to selected product projects. These issues can then be tracked both by the assignees of the project tasks, as well as the customer whom will be automatically notified the moment anything changes on their issue ticket. This service therefore delivers transparency and accountability.

However, and in spite of this extensive and extended free support platform, SciBit also provides a Priority Support Service which caters for those customers whom:

• Want their requests on SciBit products to be handled in a guarenteed, prioritized, transparent, accountable and expidited manner.
• Want a priority support service for their customers on their own products/projects to be handled in a guarenteed, prioritized, transparent, accountable and expidited manner.
• Have a need to leverage some or all of the online SciBit systems for their own business needs, but currently lack the capacity to institute and maintain similar systems.

Procedure

The Priority Support service allows you, the customer, to buy support units, where "units" is defined as either hours of priority support, or incidents of support. For example, one incident may take only 15 minutes to respond to/resolve, while another takes 15 hours depending on the complexity of the support request and/or the level the end-user has been trained to. These units are valid for a maximum period of 12 months from the date of purchase, and currently retails for $10/unit.

Once you have a block of Priority Support allocated to your account, either you or your end-user can utilize the support by simply referencing your Priority Support Serial as displayed in your account. Once your support request (via track able ticket in the Help Desk) has been received it will automatically "jump the support queue" to the back to the front of the line, and will therefore be handled on a priority basis by the first available support staff member.

Priority Support also entitles you to direct telephone support using either SciBit's PABX or VoIP facilities. Depending on personnel availability and your time zone should a support staff member always be present or respond asap to your voicemail dropped. Again, you should remember to reference your Priority Support Serial when submitting your request.

Example 1 (You the customer; SciBit the service provider)

You have purchased a product from SciBit and either the product came bundled with free Priority Support units, or you purchased additional Priority Support. Each time you have an issue, request or query, you now reference your Priority Support Serial (found in your SciBit Secure account) when you communicate with SciBit Support on any of our support platforms. Your request is then automatically handled on a priority basis and the response expidited. The response incident/hours will be automatically deducted from your Priority Support Serial's available support units, the remainder of which you can then use for future requests.

Example 2 (You the vendor; SciBit the service provider)

You have a Product A which you may have developed in conjunction with SciBit. After the product has been delivered, distributed and installed, you enrolled your customers into a training course for your product. As your product's support lifecycle begins, you decide to utilize not only SciBit's free support services, but also the Priority Support for a select few important customers using your product. You may even bill your special customers in your own capacity for this priority support, or you may opt to include a "free" priority support request per installed instance of your product. Whichever the case may be, you come to SciBit's site and purchase Priority Support:

You are subsequently and immediately issued with a Priority Support serial number which are valid for 12 months and contains 100 units of support. You now distribute SciBit's helpdesk link and your support serial as part of your product and service to the select few customers or even to just a single customer (i.e. one serial per customer). Your customer subsequently use this online 24/7 facility to report issues to which SciBit Support responds immediately on a priority basis, and of which you eventually take note to improve your product in future releases. The SciBit support response is subsequently deducted from your Priority Support Serial. Now you have 99 units (hours/incidents) left.

Example 3 (You the vendor and service provider; SciBit the ASP)

Exactly the same setup as in Example 2, but this time you intent in providing the support service yourself and simply use the SciBit systems as the means to this end. So you become a registered affiliate/partner of SciBit, which means you will now earn a preset percentage on the any sales made through SciBit for the support service. A commission which is then automatically paid into your bank account each month.

Your customers now buy the Priority Support and use their own serials each time they log a request via our Help Desk. You, or your employees, now respond to the requests for support and in doing so are the unit(s) automatically deducted from your customer's Priority Support Serial.

This example therefore effectively boils down to paying SciBit a commission for the use of our systems for a service you and your company renders. Our systems allow for complete and transparent integration into your own website, manuals and helpfiles exactly for this purpose. SciBit is therefore your ASP (Application Service Provider).