Once you've shipped your product, managed to convince users to try it, and trained them to use it, you still have an important role to play in your product's success, because all software requires support in one way or another, even after initial training.

Whether your product is a simple website, or a complex enterprise system, users and customers will always require a way to find help because it's inevitable that they will have questions or get stuck in what they're trying to do with your product.

The range of support options varies greatly. On the enterprise end of the spectrum, these are often complicated commercial arrangements, with different service level agreements (SLAs) that are dependent on the customer's chosen package and contract, often coupled within the license model for the software itself.

The focus...