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What do
your support contracts cover? |
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We provide support
on anything that you would expect to see on a typical network.
Specific areas that we cover include servers, workstations,
operating systems and applications, printers, routers, switches,
hubs, network infrastructure, Internet connections, firewalls…
basically if anything goes wrong on your network, we would be
your first point of contact. |
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What operating
systems and applications do you cover? |
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We cover all Microsoft
operating systems and applications. |
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We have
a specialist application written by a third party. Would you
cover that? |
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A lot of our customers have
specialist applications that are written and supported by another
supplier. We usually work with the supplier to make sure that
their application is happy, and to resolve problems if they
arise. We accelerate the process of fixing problems by giving
the supplier detailed information about the problem, and by
helping them to implement a fix safely and quickly. |
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Do you
provide hardware support? |
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Yes. If we
investigate a problem that turns out to be caused by faulty
hardware, we will work with you and your hardware supplier to
order replacement parts and install them for you, but we do
not supply the parts themselves. This is because hardware suppliers
are much better placed to provide spares and replacement parts,
and they can provide hardware maintenance far more cheaply than
we could. Most companies these days buy hardware with 3-year
warranties, so it’s already covered. |
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So you
don’t sell hardware? |
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We can supply
any hardware, software or licenses you require. But if you prefer
to buy your hardware from somewhere else, that’s OK too. |
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What’s your typical support
customer like? |
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We have an
enormous range of different customers across all industry sectors.
Our smallest support customers are single person companies,
while our biggest has just under seventy-five. The difference
is that for smaller customers we tend to look after everything,
whereas with larger customers we tend to support specific systems,
provide additional support to existing support teams, or provide
specialist skills. |
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How do
you charge for network support? |
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We charge a basic
monthly fee which entitles you to a certain number of hours
of support or consultancy per month. If you need more support
than your contract provides, we are happy to provide it for
an additional hourly charge. |
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Why do
you charge a monthly fee? |
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Providing effective network
support requires that we know your systems inside out. We need
to keep detailed records of how everything is configured so
that we can respond quickly and safely when you have a problem.
We have remote monitoring systems and procedures that can warn
us in advance of problems before they become critical. And of
course we have to provide sufficient resources so that we always
have someone available to deal with your call. All of this costs
us money, whether or not you have a problem at any given time.
We try to keep the monthly fee as low as we can without sacrificing
quality or responsiveness. However, we also support many customers
on a time and materials basis. |
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Are you
expensive then? |
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We – and presumably
our existing support customers – don’t think so. There are network
support providers that charge less than we do, and those that
charge an awful lot more. We are positioned at the very top
of the market in terms of quality, and around half way up in
terms of cost. Sometimes we carry out work on behalf of other
support providers whose rates are two or three times as high
as our own, for the same people doing the same work. We’re certainly
a lot cheaper than lost data or a day spent without a working
network system. We have come across systems that were so vulnerable
the entire business was hanging by a thread. What price would
you put on your business? |
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What if
I don’t have any budget for network support? |
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It’s simply unrealistic
to expect your IT systems to run forever without having any
problems, and since they are a crucial business asset it’s equally
unrealistic not to have them adequately covered. Think of the
monthly charge as being insurance for one of your companies
most valuable assets. |
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How quickly
can you respond to problems? |
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Depending on the type of support
contract you take out with us, we guarantee emergency response
times as little as four hours. Note that these are contractual
response times and so represent worst-case scenarios; we normally
respond immediately to emergencies. |
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How do
you respond to problems? |
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We set up remote
links to all of our customers’ sites, either using through a
VPN or using ISDN. This allows us to take control of servers
and other critical network components within minutes, so that
we can respond to problems immediately. A lot of problems can
be fixed within minutes, but if we cannot resolve a problem
remotely we will go onsite. We aim to be onsite within 4 hours
of identifying a problem that cannot be fixed remotely, but
it’s usually a lot quicker than that. |
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What’s different about
you? |
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No grey areas, no finger-pointing,
and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. We see many customers
who have been suffering with some sort of problem for months
because the hardware supplier says it's a software problem,
and the software vendor says it's a hardware problem. We don't
operate like that. In most cases our customers don't especially
care where the problem lies; they just need it fixed. We operate
on a "fix it first; discuss it later" basis and we try to avoid
grey areas and finger-pointing at all costs. |
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What else is different
about you? |
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Over the years we have built
up a good understanding of our customers, and what they want
from a support provider. The things they want are honest objective
advice, reliability, effectiveness, value for money and accountability.
These attributes are getting rarer in today's cut-throat, short-term
profit obsessed climate - and that's what makes us different.
We still believe in the old principles of looking after customers,
and building long term relationships. |
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Anything else? |
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We have a very unusual mix
of clients, most are small but some are considered large, we
don't accept companies with more than seventy-five employees.
This allows us to tailor the advice and services we provide
to each client’s budget, and (just as importantly) to adapt
as they grow and as their priorities change. We gain a lot of
clients who have grown rapidly and whose existing support providers
either couldn’t keep pace with them, or else didn’t have the
skills that larger companies need. Our unique client mix also
enables us to provide smaller companies with expertise we have
gained from larger ones, especially in areas (such as security)
which tend to get overlooked by companies below a certain size. |
