Organisations are turning to outsourced support providers for a whole host of reasons, some of which we outlined with our previous blog post. When trusting your businesses IT systems with an outsourced team it is crucial that you form a strong relationship with them. After all, they are looking after the foundations of your business.
The outsourcing world is primarily a relationship business, no matter what side of the table you are sitting on. Clients should expect to form a strong and agile relationship with their support services provider from the moment they sign their contract. Equally as an IT services provider we strive to form the best relationship possible with our clients going forward. But sitting down with a contract in front of you is one thing, having the service delivered is another kettle of fish. With this post we will explore the ways in which we ensure we forge as strong a relationship with our clients as possible.
On-boarding process
We don’t just let you sign the contract and then try and avoid you until you need to call upon our services. As part of our onboarding process we will come out and meet you at your offices to begin to get to know your team. After all we pride ourselves on the attention we pay to your business, and how can we pay attention to your business if we never pay attention to your business? You know what we mean.
As part of our on-boarding process you will be visited on-site by your Technical Consultant and Account Manager, and where possible, members of your local helpdesk team. During this visit you will receive contact cards – handy cards to be placed on each of your employees desk with the relevant contact details, and will build up a relationship with your Account Manager and Technical Consultant. We also encourage our new clients to come and visit us at our offices so that you can get to know people from across our organisation, and can start to put names to faces with our helpdesk team!
Location of clients
Unlike other IT support service providers, it is not uncommon for us to turn down business. To you this might sound counterproductive – why would an IT support provider turn down the opportunity to provide IT support? Well for us to be able to offer the standard of service and support that we strive for, if you are located more than an hour away from one of our offices we will not agree to support you. Lucky for you though we have offices covering Thames Valley, Swindon, Oxford, London, Peterborough and Bristol.
Being located no further than an hour from one of our offices means that one of our technical consultants can get out to you on the same day should the problem deem an onsite visit. This is because we know how frustrating it can be when you have a critical issue that prevents you or your teams from working. Like we said, it is all about relationships. We would hate it if we couldn’t work for the day so why should you have to suffer!
Face to face engagement
We have already given you a bit of an overview of the on-boarding process where members of the team will come out and welcome you the world of Complete I.T., but the face to face interaction doesn’t end there.
As part of our helpdesk team’s monthly targets, we do include client visits. This is because aside from your Account Manager and Technical Consultant, the helpdesk team will be your main port of call should you experience any technical difficulties. This way you will be able to build up even more familiarity with the team and can put faces to voices.
Helpdesk team
This really is the epicentre of our focus on relationships. We truly understand how frustrating it can be when phoning a helpdesk and Joe Bloggs picks up on the other end (no offence intended to any Joe Bloggs who may be reading this). What we mean by this is that we have a certain criteria our helpdesk team needs to meet: 1) know their stuff and 2) be normal. We only hire helpdesk technicians that are able to form relationships with our clients and are plain speaking – in other words they are technical experts who also have the people skills to go with it. Should you become a Complete I.T. client, you will build up great familiarity with the helpdesk team who will come to recognise you and ultimately leave you on first name terms.
So there you have it. For us to deliver the same service to you as we do all of our existing clients, it is equally important for us to take the time to get to know your team and your business as well as it is for you to feel you have a strong relationship with your support provider. To see how good we are at relationships, get in touch with us today.