We recently received our notice/bill for our annual Dentrix support fee.
It was $1327.45 — how that number is figured I’m not quite sure.
The DENTRIX website says service plans are $1099/yr or $99/mo.
Here’s what the letter says we get for that fee:
- Unlimited Technical Support
- We called once, maybe twice in 2007
- All Dentrix upgrades
- We received none in 2007
- Expanded Practice Website
- We have our own.
- Computerized Dentist “Newsletter”
- We usually throw this sales brochure away
- Coming Soon eBackup
- We have a backup solution already
- Separately from Dentrix this is $29.95/mo. plus a $100 setup fee ($459.40 total)
- Maybe this is where the additional $228 is coming from ($1327 – $1099)
- Dentrix G3 – Guru Jr. Express
- We’re not touching G2, much less G3
- Someone should ask their naming consultant for a refund. Does the name “Guru Jr. Express” inspire confidence?
- Online Training
- We have an excellent local trainer
- Coming Soon Dentrix Online Knowledgebase
- This is a nice feature and should have been implemented in 1999 when most other online companies were doing it.
- How about a development Blog? We’d love to know what the engineers were doing on a regular basis, so that actual customers could comment on the direction Dentrix is going
- OR, how about a Feature Voting System like Dell used to design their new machines? Actual customers driving the direction of the product…crazy…I know.
- OR how about being able to download the product directly from the website instead of having to order $25 CDs?
- and lastly it says “And More! We are continually adding value, discounts, and privileges to your customer service plan. As new products and services become available, we work to make sure our valued customers receive special consideration. Our goal is to help maximize your investment.”
- We didn’t really see a lot of value last year, and it’s not looking good for this one either.
- Do they only care about the customers who pay the support fee?
So, suppose we called them 3 times last year (1 more than actual) — Each call cost us: $442.48
Pay as you go support is $25 for 10 minutes (minimum) + $2.50 each additional minute. for “regular” support
“High Tech” support is $35 for 10 minutes (min.) + $3.50 ea. additional minute
So this year, we’re going naked.
If anything goes wrong and we need support, we can talk to them for almost 9 hours before we’re in the hole again.
I have a office that is running Dentrix 11. I put Nod32 on and it just shut down the Dentrix. I think I tracked it down to the TcpIP limit of 10 connection started in Win XP SP2.
I completely agree. The Annual support plans are outrageously costly. These guys are getting greedy, can’t wait to find a competition ditch them.
Have you checked Henry Schein’s equipment repair labor rates? $210 per hour plus a $30 show up fee. I can buy an hour’s worth of legal or tax service for that price.
Hi Jim – the 10 connection limit was in place before SP2. It’s most likely a blocking issue on nod32.
Jonathan
One of my clients went “naked” from Dentrix support last year. It was fine, we paid for the support we needed, and we really haven’t wanted even the Dentrix upgrades they have provided. They keep us one version behind the latest when we don’t pay the support fee.
You haven’t posted in a while, but your views and opinions exactly match mine – cool. Let me know if you ever want to chat, I support dentists, endodontist, orthodontist, eye doctor, various family members, have a day job as an database administrator and a Java developer, and (as if that wasn’t enough) I run Blue Moon Backup.
So how’s going ‘naked’ going for you?
A follow up post would be nice.
I can’t do as well without support. We contact Dentrix frequently and get quite a bit out of most calls.
Good Idea… I’m working on a follow-up post now.
Re the NOD32 problem – I’ve seen similar issues with Symantec Endpoint Security when it has network threat detection on…it detects network activity, decides any network activity is a virus and shuts down the network interface.
The annual Dentrix support fee is very expensive. They should have lowered that… I think its very unreasonable already…