Upgrades: What’s Timing Got to Do With It?

We love the periodic notices we get from various entities with which we work in our personal lives, entities like banks, mortgage companies, auto-finance companies, credit-card companies, and others. They typically go something like this:

PLEASE NOTE: Our system will be shut down for the Holidays. As a result, it will be offline from New Year’s Day to Christmas Day, during which time you’ll be unable to check anything, schedule anything, pay anything, or withdraw anything. We apologize for any inconveniences this may cause you, including but not limited to headaches, bouts of anxiety, defaults, foreclosures, repossessions, liens, derogatory credit reports, or Nasty-Grams from any of your creditors. Have a nice day.

We’re a software shop. We get the fact that software and systems upgrades are necessary and always will be. But does their timing have to be arbitrarily predetermined? And if we extend the necessity of upgrades from our personal lives to our businesses, what does that timing actually have to do with your business and its needs?

Everything.

It’s About Time

Every provider of every kind of software or system to any kind of business in any industry has to provide things on occasion — upgrades, updates, patches, bug-fixes, new versions, and whatever else might be necessary. If those providers ask you anything at all (sometimes they don’t), they usually ask just two questions:

1. Are you ready?
2. How ‘bout now?

We think a few other questions might be in order:

• Do you need it?
• Do you need it now?
• Do you have other, more important operational considerations right now?
• Do you know when the upgrade will help you the most or be most advantageous?
• Will you let us know?

That might not be the best way to go about things, but it seems to be the most beneficial.

Common Sense

We don’t know why common sense seems to be so uncommon. But we do know it makes sense to let customers have upgrades at the right time and to let them determine the right time.

Upgrades on your time. That seems pretty common-sensible.