12
April 2003
Kartavya/Abhi,
WEB
SERVICE PRICING
·
Enclosed
find my proposal for “Web service Tariffs”
·
While
suggesting /recommending these, I have broadly followed following
guidelines/principles :
1.
Pre-paid
System
2.
Pay-per
use
3.
There
is no “free lunch” in the world!
5.
Once
users get used to getting anything free, they resist when they are asked to pay
for the same at a later date.
6.
Users
have no “respect/Value” for anything that is given away free! They think, it
must be a useless product? service!
In fact, there are any no of
examples in business-world that “Sales” jumped when “selling-price” was raised!
“Perceived value” of that product/service went-up!
If it is expensive, it has got to
be good!.
Same product in an up-market shop,
sells at 10 times the price at which it is sold in a down-market shop.
7.
Every
mouse click makes our server to “work & deliver”. It imposes work-load on
server & server delivers “SERVICE”. Subscriber must pay for that service.
8.
If
we were to ask a subscriber to pay Rs. 500/- per resume (all processes
included) then he may not even subscriber!
But when same Rs. 500/- is
broken-up into 100 clicks @ Rs. 5/- each, he would not even notice/care to
count & add –up.
9.
In
any case, there cannot be any fixed no. of “Transactions (mouse-clicks) PER
resume. For a given resumes, some transaction (eg: email) may happen 10 times,
whereas some other (eg: edit) may happen only once.
10. No subscriber is going to look-up
the “TARIFF TABLE” first before he clicks. He will, most likely look it up once
in the beginning & that forgets all about it. So, what we should do is that
every time we add a new (transaction) button –and corresponding tariff – we
simply edit/update the tariff-table as follows:
Sr.
No.
|
Transaction
|
Name
of Button
|
Tariff
|
Date activated
|
Every time a new button is added, we just send
out an email to all subscribers, saying that a new feature has been added to
the “Tariff Table” which they should look-up.
11. In V 1,0 the Tariff Table will be
standard/ uniform for all subscribers. From V 2.0 or V 3.0, the Tariff Table
may be unique for each subscriber.
In such a unique /bi lateral,
arrangement/agreement, we must get from each subscriber, his unequivocal /
undisputed “Acceptance” of the tariff, BEFORE we activate his service.
This is a must-otherwise we will
have all kinds of disputes.
To overcome this problem, at the
button of the TARIFF TABLE, let us provide a button.
This (requirement on part of the
subscriber) should from an integral part of
ACTIVATION INSTRUCTIONS
Every time a new button is added,
it should get inserted in RED & subscriber must be asked read & click
SUBMIT, once more. When he does, RED turns to normal black & a message
flashes:
Reactivated/you may now use the
service.
If a new button is added but
subscriber, for some reason, fails to lookup Tariff Table once more & click
on SUBMIT once more, and then clicking of that new button should flash
following message.
This is a new
service. To activated this, please look-up the TARIFF TABLE, and by way
of your acceptance, click on the SUBMIT button once again, appearing at
the button of the TARIFF TABLE
|
An automatic email should go out
to all subscribers, every time a new button gets added. This way, you don’t
have to remember to inform/advise each subscriber individually where; there is
a possibility of forgetting some & incurring a “Revenue Leakage”.
The list of transaction (&
button/tariffs) enclosed is NOT comprehensive. It is illustrative & should
help you to come up with a more comprehensive list/table.
Since screen-area is a limitation,
you will need to be “Cryptic” while giving “names” to the buttons.
