July 9, 2012 – Los Angeles, Ca – During its Q2 meeting on Monday, Sintel Systems, a leading provider of point of sale (POS) systems, announced changes to its service and support plan starting in January 2013. Senior staff members commented, “In order to continue the high level of support and service we provide while maintaining the customers long term goals into consideration, we are slightly modifying our pricing model.” The company’s support plan offers a variety of services including technical support and software upgrades. Since 2007, the company has maintained a heavily subsidized pricing structure. According to the firm’s representative, this was Sintel Systems “stimulus plan” for the industry after the market turmoil of 2007. It put extra cash into business owner’s pockets and provided them will franchise level service to allow for future expansion. Company officials viewed this as an alignment of goals. On average, the plan provided the customer with over $2,000 in subsidies and based on comments made by staff. The subsidy itself will stay intact and only the retail price of the plan will be adjusted to align with current market conditions.
Sintel Systems indicated that the pricing will not change until January of 2013 and all current customers will have the opportunity to renew their plan no matter when it is expiring and receive an additional three months free. As an example, if the current plan is expiring in June of 2013, any customer can renew their plan at the exiting prices to add on 15 more months of support starting in June 2013. Furthermore, any customer intending to open a store in the first half of 2013, can take advantage of the current prices by simply committing to purchase of the system and the company will keep the system until the customer is ready.
The details of the current plan are listed on the company’s website here: POS Technical Support
The details of the current and future support plan pricing are provided here in a Q&A format:
Why is the support price changing?
Back in the economic turmoil of 2007, Sintel Systems introduced its own stimulus plan for our customers. How did we do this? We starting subsidizing our support plan valued at $1,200 in two ways (Click for Full Details):
1. We lowered the absolute price from $1,200 to $495 for the first terminal and from $600 to $195 for any additional terminals at the same location.
2. We went further by increasing the period from 12 to 18 months without any additional cost.
How much did Sintel Systems subsidize the POS support plan? Let’s do the math:
TERMINAL 1: Sintel Systems subsidized the technical support plan from $1,200 for 12 months by increasing the length of the support plan to 18 months (a $600 value) and subsidize the price to $495 (a $705) value thereby affording the business owner an additional $1,305 for other purposes.
TERMINAL 2, 3, etc.: Sintel Systems subsidizes the technical support plan for additional terminals at the same location from $600 for 12 months by increasing the length of the support plan to 18 months (a $300 value) and subsidize the price to 200 (a $405) value thereby affording the business owner an additional $705 for other purposes.
What was the average savings? The average franchise oriented business will acquire two terminals and the subsidy offered by Sintel Systems is a sizable $2,010 for the owner of the business to use for other efforts such as marketing to encourage growth.
What was the catch? Since Sintel Systems only succeeds when its customers succeed. So, this program was enacted to help our customers succeed and expand. In return, we simply asked that if a customer succeeded in expansion beyond one store into multi-store operations, franchises or licensee operations, they were committed to staying with Sintel Systems through the life operation for all their POS needs. Sintel Systems was essentially a partner in the customer’s success and this made us all share in each others’ success. The option always existed for the customer not to participate in the program anytime before or after the purchase. (Click for Full Details.)
In the last five years since Sintel Systems started its subsidized support program, the company has not increased its prices. The company thanks its dedicated staff for continuously offering this service at below market rates. While the price of almost everything has risen around us, Sintel Systems continued to sacrifice for the success of its customers.
What is happening to the subsidy? In reality, the fixed amount of the subsidy is staying the sam; however, we adjusting the price of the support plan to align with the excellent service we provide. The current market rate for a 12-month Support Plan that includes all the benefits provided by Sintel System’s plan is priced at $1,500. We will still provide the $705 in subsidy?
How much will the Support Plan cost me starting in 2013? The support plan starting in January 2013 will be offered for $795 ($1500 – $705 [subsidy]) for the first terminal and $400 ($800 – $705 [subsidy]) for any additional terminals at the same location.
Can I lock into the current rate?
Any customer who purchases or renews their plan by December 31, 2012 will qualify for the current pricing. All orders placed on or after January 1, 2013 will be subject to the restructured support plan.
Sintel Systems is quality provider point of sale systems to the entire retail and service industries including yogurt, pizza, and juice shops. Its clients include major franchise and chain operations.
We are Sintel Systems: Single Source Business Solutions! Hardware – Software – Support
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Questions or Comments: Contact us 855-POS-SALES
