Ongoing Support

Robust support and diligent maintenance are essential to ensuring the platform’s continuous operation, security, and evolution. This section outlines expectations for vendor support capabilities, update practices, and ongoing compatibility management. For nonprofits managing mission-critical giving systems, reliable support and proactive maintenance are not optional—they are a foundational project phase.

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🧑‍💻 Responsive Customer Support & SLAs (Including 24/7 for Critical)

The platform must offer responsive, multi-channel support with well-defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs). These agreements must guarantee clear response timelines for issues based on severity, especially those affecting fundraising operations or data security. Vendors should specify:

• Support contact channels such as live chat, email, and phone.
  
  
• Escalation models and defined response times based on business impact.
  
  
• A maximum 1-hour response time for critical issues, with 24/7 availability for emergencies.
  
  
• Maximum 4-hour response times during business hours for urgent needs.
  
  
• Response to non-urgent inquiries and feature requests within 24 hours.
  
  
• Emergency contact information and dedicated hotlines.
  
  
• Ability to scale support as organizational volume increases.
  
  
• Options for dedicated support representatives and tiered support packages.
  
  

“We once had a Giving Tuesday issue hit at 2AM. If there’s no guaranteed 24/7 support for emergencies, it’s a deal-breaker.”

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🔧 Technical Support Capabilities

Vendors must provide an overview of their technical support team and structure. This should include:

• How day-to-day support questions (e.g., feature use, admin questions) are handled.
  
  
• Processes for escalating and resolving performance or security concerns.
  
  
• Team size, experience, and support-to-client ratios.
  
  
• Availability of roles such as developers, QA engineers, and solution architects as part of post-launch support.
  
  

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🔄 Software Releases & Updates

The platform must have structured software release processes to ensure continuous improvement without disrupting operations. Vendors should:

• Detail their release frequency (major/minor versions and hotfixes).
  
  
• Explain how they notify clients of updates, including advance warning and release notes.
  
  
• Describe their version support policy (e.g., length of support before sunsetting older versions).
  
  
• Commit to providing timely patches and issue resolutions post-release.
  
  

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🔁 QA for CRM Updates (e.g., Salesforce Releases)

Given the centrality of CRM integration—particularly with Salesforce—the vendor must show they’re capable of keeping pace with CRM platform changes. Their QA strategy should include:

• Detailed explanation of how they ensure compatibility with CRM updates.
  
  
• Approach to automated and manual integration testing with the CRM.
  
  
• Rigorous regression testing to catch unintended impacts.
  
  
• Disclosure of certifications or official partnerships with Salesforce (if any).
  
  
• A formal commitment to ensuring timely fixes for CRM-related disruptions.
  
  

“We need confidence that the vendor will proactively test updates against Salesforce releases—our org can’t afford a donation sync breaking because of an API update.”

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