Fair Usage Policy - Support and Digital Services

No one wants to be seen as greedy but sometimes we need some help in defining what’s a fair portion. This document sets out in formal language what “fair” looks like. If we feel that you are in danger of exceeding this fair use policy we’ll politely let you know.

Support Overview

Authentic Digital Ltd. (“sheepCRM” or “Sheep”) encourages customers to take full advantage of our excellent Support Services team. sheepCRM strives to make sure all of our customers get the best out of the software and assists them in doing so in every way Sheep’s team reasonably can.

Defect, Bugs, Glitches: The sheepCRM software platform is not perfect, it has defects and will, unfortunately, have more bugs in the future. Our aim is bug free software and we work hard to that end. There are however occasions when a defect cannot reasonably be fixed and we will ask you to work around the problem.

A good bug report will contain:

  • The outcome you were seeking

  • What you did

  • What you expected to happen

  • What actually happened

Change requests: We are frequently asked to change the way elements of the system operate. Thank you for your suggestions, many of these have been incorporated into the product. Sheep is a multi-client product with many users accessing the platform and wanting different experiences. We must balance the competing demands of all our stakeholders so sometimes we will say “no” to a change request that isn’t right for our product at this time.

When suggesting a change please include:

  • The outcome you are seeking

  • Why you want this outcome and its importance

  • Why the current system does not work for you

Help & Questions: Most support requests are questions about how the system works, why something has happened or how to achieve a particular outcome. Please use our online help documents and your internal documentation first.

Where the documents haven’t helped please contact us with the following information:

  • The outcome you are seeking

  • What you’ve tried or where you have looked already

  • Where you are stuck or confused.

Inclusive Support Services

“Inclusive Support Services” means those services provided by the sheepCRM Support Services team which are included within sheepCRM’s standard licence.

  1. sheepCRM Support Services can be accessed via email on support@sheepcrm.com during normal UK business hours 09:00-17:00 Monday – Friday (excluding Bank Holidays).

Customers can contact us via:

  • Live in-app chat during UK office hours

  • Email support@sheepcrm.com

  • Please don’t use staff emails or phones for support issues.

  1. Out of hours support is limited to critical issues e.g. the sheepCRM service is unavailable

  2. Inclusive Support Services are provided by the sheepCRM Support Services Team to its paying users free of charge.

  • We endeavour to answer all customer emails or online chat requests promptly.

  • We make all reasonable efforts to resolve customers’ queries and questions subject to our fair usage policy

  • Where possible, we will give estimated time frames for any follow-up work required.

  • We aim to resolve all issues promptly based upon a fair assessment of the impact. We don’t commit to an arbitrary time scale but under normal circumstances you can expect an initial response within half a working day and resolution within a couple of days.

(July 2021: based on previous 12 weeks: the median response time was 40 minutes and median time to close was 6 hours 19 minutes)

  1. The Support Services Team may be assisted by other teams, including Training and Customer Success, as deemed appropriate by sheepCRM, to deliver Inclusive Support Services.

  2. Inclusive Support Services are defined as support for technical issues relating to the use of the sheepCRM platform. This can be defined as including:

  • Asking for help: Technical queries and advice

  • Reporting a problem: Defects

  • Requesting a changes that requires super-user permissions

  1. Access to Inclusive Support Services is restricted to reasonable and fair usage as defined in section 4 of this policy. All non-critical support should be funnelled through your nominated support contact

  2. Any services expressly excluded or omitted from Inclusive Support Services are not included within the licence fee. These services may be available from the Support Services team but will be chargeable. sheepCRM reserves the right to limit access to these services. Availability of non-inclusive Support Services may change from time to time.

Fair Usage of Support Services

  1. sheepCRM’s operates under a Fair Usage Policy of Inclusive Support Services to ensure that customers are receiving fair and equal quality support from our team.

  2. Support Services or Customer Success advice and assistance cannot be used in lieu of sheepCRM training or development work. Doing so prevents our Support Services Team from providing vital support to other customers.

Our team can only support the platform, they can’t support how you have chosen to use the platform. You will need your own internal documentation which includes sheepCRM references. E.g. We can train you how to cancel a membership and refund a member but we can’t tell you under what circumstances you should do that.

  1. Where a Customer query is identified as a request for a non-inclusive support service, the Customer will be reminded of this policy and if appropriate quoted for the service in line with sheepCRM’s then current prices.

  2. Unless agreed otherwise between sheepCRM and the Customer, the following services are considered non-inclusive services:

  • Training

  • Development

  • Project management

  • Consultancy

  • Database amendments or deletion

  • Out of hours support (excluding critical cover)

  • Any other services outside the definition of Inclusive Support Services

  1. Unfair usage: the following are examples of unfair usage:

  • Vague or incomplete requests (see 1.1 for well structured requests)

  • Repeated requests

  • Inappropriate or irrelevant requests (sorry we can’t help with your printer)

  • Reporting problems with third party applications

Training

  1. Training during setup. Your contract will include a training budget which we will suggest based upon an assessment of your likely needs. If you have particular training needs or complexity please discuss this with our team. Training purchased as part of your setup is discounted because we know that early training will benefit you and save time and problems later. Training hours purchased as part of your setup must be used within 90 days unless otherwise agreed in advance.

  2. Train the trainer. Our model is to offer 1:1 training to one nominated individual “the trainer” and that person will train their wider team.

  • All customers must have a nominated “trainer” that has completed a sheepCRM training program. If the nominated trainer leaves your organisation you must appoint a new trainer. In ideal circumstances your new trainer will have been fully trained by the outgoing trainer.

  • Re-training, top-up training or training additional trainers is chargeable at the standard training rate. We may insist on top-up training if your team is at risk of breach in the fair use policy.

  1. Where a customer query is identified as a training need, as opposed to an inclusive support services need, this is considered to be unfair usage and will be referred to the Training Team:

A training need is defined as any query which requires explanation of how to use the software beyond what can reasonably be considered a clarification, suggestion or reminder; or Any query that will require phone or online support of over 15 minutes to explain, which is not a technical fault or forms part of a wider troubleshooting query which requires the Support Services Team’s technical help or guidance is also considered a training need.

  1. Customer Support tickets are monitored. Heavy volume customers may be referred to the Customer Success Team to review usage and training needs.

Development

  1. Any Customer request or query which requires support which goes beyond a reasonable request for technical troubleshooting is considered a development service and will be chargeable at the development daily rate.

  2. Development work will be passed to the development team to estimate the feasibility and time involved to complete the work.

  3. sheepCRM will quote the Customer based on the development team’s estimates. Development work will only commence upon agreement with the Customer.

  4. Development work includes but is not limited to:

  • Any unique changes to the interface or back-end databases.

  • The introduction of any software feature or hardware compatibility only available to a small number of customers.

  • Recovery from backup of data deleted by the customer.

  1. Where development work is requested that would be of benefit to the larger customer base, this will be considered as part of sheepCRM’s development release plan.

Fair Usage of Digital Services

The following limits help us to provide a stable system that is fast and available for all our users. We regularly review these limits to maximise utility and fairness. Your contract may impose additional restrictions.

  1. API: 600 requests per minute and 10000 per hour per user account. Increased limits are available for approved integrations

  2. Email: Maximum batch size 1500 emails (breaking a larger number into multiple batches is fine.)