In order for weloveIT to deliver the best customer experience we have chosen to build a personal relationship with each and every customer. Here is our process.
Step 1: Who is the Customer?
An audition process allows us to best fit personality, skill and location. We investigate the vision and the core business, how can we steer our customer if we don’t know where they are going?
- Personality – Does the technician fit the customers personality and style of business?
- Skill – Does the technician meet the skills required to service and support the customer?
- Location – Does the customer fall within the technicians radius of support?
Knowing these basic ingredients allows us to move forward with an in depth investigation.
Step 2: What does the Customer Need?
Do you really need that expensive server? An onsite assessment will ensue where a senior technician will visit with the customer (several times) to kick the tires. Taking over IT infrastructure is very similar to buying a second hand car. We do a top down inspection to make sure there is smooth sailing from day one. This is not to say we don’t enjoy a fixer-upper, we would gladly take on a restoration project if required.
Knowledge transfer on the following items gives us insight into what the customer ACTUALLY needs
- Hardware/Asset Analysis – Generally equipment starts to fail after 3 years and many customers try to squeeze the maximum life out. Experience has taught us, downtime is more costly than budget and IT planning.
- Services Costing Analysis – who supplies the customer; internet, email, hosting, hardware, printers, data storage and what are the costs? One of the most powerful things about us is the ability to offer any if not all of the services required by our customers. We negotiate the best rates from all suppliers to deliver a single service offering at between 5-10% less than what they are currently getting.
- Service Intervals and Maintenance – when do customers need support? NOW. Understanding IT support trends and design a regular support visit schedule as well as and out of production maintenance schedule. We can then taper off the urgent/critical events and work on proactive projects.
From these assessments and workshops we have a pretty good idea of who the customer is and what they need.
Step 3: How do we support the Customer?
Every customer is different. Doing our home work allows us to deliver a good service and support but we don’t want to be just good. We want to be GREAT, so great that you tell your friends and other business partners about us. This is how we level up and deliver GREAT IT Service and Support.
- Customer Staff Head Count – The rule is 0.5 general support hours per customer head count per month. It varies by 0.1+/- hours but we are often spot on using this equation.
- Production Equipment Count – The rule here is 1.5 senior support hours per customer per month. Servers need TLC. Only highly skilled technicians take on the task of service maintenance as it is a art. Timing, research and expertise are the formula for GREAT up time on Production Equipment.
- Internet and Email Service Cost/Uptime – Saving a buck or two could cost you a buck or more. We get down to the cost vs. uptime saving and design the highest uptime offering within your budget. Most customers cannot be offline as many/most of their business relies heavily/completely on internet and email. It gets very expensive very quickly when staff cannot operate so we build in contingencies. Our careful thought and planning on which provider and which style of redundancy puts us above the rest.
- All Other Service Management – We are not your regular IT provider. We do not pass the buck. We want to know about all of your services, applications and aches and pains. By understanding all things IT in our customers business we can solve problems faster and make better long term decisions. At the time of handover we engage all of the customers external service providers to perform a knowledge.
- Customer Equipment Management – An older slower computer is less productive and here is why. Time
Knowing the intricacies of each of our customers and their business allows us to better service, support and steer them to IT growth and IT stability. From here we build an all inclusive or hybrid IT Service and Support Agreement. Every 3 months the general support hours are analyzed then optimized to meet the customers demand and reduce unnecessary recurring issues.
Example: Customer X
Customer X is a legal firm, they have 10 staff, 2 large printers, 1 server and a mixture of laptops and desktops. They receive internet and telephones from their building and have an outsourced email provider. Customer X complains about slow internet, power outages and constant problems. Solve for customer X:
- Who is the customer: They are a legal office, they work late nights and tension runs high. They have a legal accounting software which is managed externally and no backups. They are en-route for Employee Y which has a vast knowledge of servers and and prefers to work late. Arrange a site visit and enter into step 2.
- What does the customer need: Looking at the telephone and internet fee’s we notice it is slightly inflated. Also, the legal accounting software has an extremely expensive maintenance agreement. After checking all the desktops and laptops we noticed 3 were below productive output, no anti-virus and no backup. Email is also not backed up.
- How do we support the customer: A cost comparison taking over internet, email and server maintenance is outlined as well as a 3 month weekly onsite visit schedule to bring machines back to an optimal output. A knowledge transfer is scheduled for employee Y to learn the in’s and out’s of the legal software to ensure he/she can support and service the application. After 3 months a report is generated outlining where majority of the support is spent, how to optimize it and how to reduce the monthly costs.
Customer X Cost Breakdown:
Monthly Account Administration Fee R350
- The is to keep the lights on, feed the collection and maintenance of documentation back and forward. We create detailed diagrams and customer outlines which are regularly revised and delivered to the customer.
Scheduled Onsite Support Visits R2475 (5hrs x R495/hr billed in 15min increments)
- Customers head count (10 employees) x .05hrs = 5hrs Per month
- 3hrs allocated to a monthly onsite support visit where the technician will address key issues around the office
- 2hrs allocated to unschedule telephone and remote support calls where the technician solves server issues in 15min increments.
Scheduled Server Maintenance and Administration R825 (1.5hrs x R550/hr billed in 15min increments)
- Installation of critical updates outside of operation hours
- Scheduled reboot and hardware checks
- Backup health checks and testing
- Optimization
Internet Services R1200 (Fibre Intenet at 40mbps suitable for 10-20 user organization)
- Best reliability vs. price offering from weloveIT, including a backup internet solution
Email Services R850 (R85/mailbox including: 50gb storage, backup, calendar syncing, contact syncing and web access)
- Reliable hosted corporate email
- Spam filtering
- Virus protection
- Domain administration
- Mobile device management
Printer Service R0
- Enter into knowledge transfer with outsourced printer provider and manage the printer
- Order consumables and ensure daily operation
Total Monthly IT Spend R4500
A single invoice outlining all of the support requests and all of the managed services are delivered on the 25ht of each month. Its that simple.
Conclusion
WeloveIT intends on having a long standing relationship with its Customers and a level of trust needs to be built over time. We are dedicated and passionate technicians who enjoy what we do and hope you will give us an opportunity to improve your business.
You can get in touch with us via: accounts@weloveIT.co.za or +27114864151
We look forward to hearing from you!