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Why
BIG is not Always
Better.
The computer industry goes through cycles of
consolidation that produces large computer services companies that tend
to gobble up the little guys and after a few years implode.
A number of years ago one of our clients
decided that they were growing so fast they should leave us for one of
these “Big” service providers. We asked all the normal questions. Were
they unhappy with our service? They said, “No, definitely not.” Were
they unhappy with our response time? The answer was, “Absolutely not.”
Then why change? “We feel we need someone bigger.”
Two months after they made the switch, we
received a telephone call asking if we would come in for a meeting. We
figured the new vendor wanted to pick our brains on some network design
decisions, so we agreed.
What happened surprised us. The company asked
if we would consider taking them back as a client. Of course we agreed,
since they had always been a great client.
We asked them what went wrong with the new
service provider and here is what they told us:
The new service provider did indeed have 80
technicians and always dispatched someone within the 4 hour window. The
problem was they dispatched one of the lowest ranked technicians in the
group, since they were the least busy. One guy admitted he usually
repaired copy machines.
The first responder seemed to know nothing of
their networks or systems and spent an hour or so of “busy work”. Then
they would call in the next level of support.
Sometimes the next person could fix the
problem, but often times they would be calling back to the office after
30 minutes on site. Problems that our company often fixed in an hour or
so were taking a few days to correct.
Bottom Line:
The big company had a lot of technicians, but only a handful of
senior engineers spread thinly across hundreds of accounts.
Senior engineers seldom went into the field
since they had to be at the office to support the 70 low level
technicians.
There was no one person who knew the client's
network or systems.
No one bothered to learn about the client’s
business.
This is where we are different:
We have only seasoned staff.
We do not have any low level people to send
out for busy work.
Most of our engineers have been in the
business for almost 20 years, and some longer.
Most of our engineers have had their own
business, so they know about cash flow and how downtime impacts your
business.
We offer consistent support with an assigned
account engineer.
We offer 24 X 7 system
monitoring and remote remedy so problems can be found and fixed before
you even get to the office.
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