As an Oracle RightNow CX implementation specialist with over 80 projects under our belts, we have significant experience with RightNow support and customizations.  In fact, given we have customized RightNow in a significant number of projects, it is probably a safe assumption that a majority of RightNow customers have customizations in their implementations.

In our experience, many RightNow customers don’t fully consider how they will manage ongoing support and changes for their customizations until a critical business issue dictates a need for support focus.  In the past, this wasn’t a daunting consideration because two of RightNow’s four Customer Care packages included support for customizations.

However, last week, Oracle distributed an email notice reminding its customers that as of the end of this year, new RightNow support agreements will no longer include support for items like custom objects that are often critical to implementations.  As a result, RightNow customers need to reconsider their strategy for customization support, or they may find trouble if and when something goes wrong with a vital customization.

The recommended option from Oracle is to address customizations through additional Oracle Consulting services.   However, for clients taking full advantage of RightNow’s flexibility, this approach will require you to engage two separate Oracle organizations for Customer Care and Consulting service.  While you may call the helpdesk to triage an issue, the recommended path for customizations involves coordinating technical support and a professional services resource while you may be in the midst of a critical production problem.

In fairness to Oracle, the legacy RightNow support policy was a generous service level.  Their change brings them back in line with the way most support contracts work.  Usually, while the responsibility of keeping the product up and running falls on the vendor, the burden of optimizing the tool for your specific business configurations falls on you.

Last year, Eventus Solutions Group launched a CRM managed services program that assures service continuity and improves business outcomes expected from a RightNow investment.  The service is called Cloud Operations Managed Services, or COMS for short.

When Eventus COMS clients called our team about the new Oracle policy, they were pleased to hear it will not affect them.  We have them covered.  They use a standard RightNow support option to keep the product up and running, and rely on the Eventus team to manage their application day-to-day.  The service level also includes proactive optimization and analytics.  It provides a “one throat to choke” mentality.

For companies that are comfortable taking the customization risk in house after they have assessed their exposure, the Eventus application team is prepared to provide support as necessary on an ad hoc basis.

If the new Oracle support policy has created exposure in your environment and you would like to consider options, please let us know.  Just mention “RightNow customization support” in the notes field and we will quickly respond to walk through options.

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