The Managed Services team at Advantage has won new SME customers for over a decade. An informal survey of our new customers reveal why they left their old support provider.
1. “They didn’t listen to us.” These providers were intent on selling what they wanted to sell over what customers actually needed. They often gave customers advice on issues they hadn’t asked about and ignored the topics they had.
2. “Problems never seem to be permanently fixed.” Some providers ‘stalled’ in fixing low level but recurring issues. Customers felt they were being fobbed off and this became irritating.
3. “It was hard getting their full attention.” Some providers operate with few staff and seemed stretched (and often irritable). They seemed focused on fire-fighting and a discussion about IT was difficult to establish.
4. “They didn’t use a ‘best of breed’ model.” Some suppliers used a limited and aged range of solutions based on their limited and aged range of capabilities. This left customers feeling they were far behind their contemporaries.
5. “There was no IT roadmap.” IT is becoming simpler, friendlier and more agile. Office 365, hosting, cloud, virtualization etc. are making life easier for SME’s. Poorly-rated providers seemed confused by these transformative technologies.
6. “We didn’t fully know what they were doing.” Many customers didn’t know what exactly they were paying for. Provider duties were vague with few, if any, reports or updates.
7. “They just weren’t proactive about resolving issues.” Some providers waited for things to go wrong rather than pre-empt issues. Topics the provider saw as minor were dismissed as not worth bothering about.
Don’t accept a mediocre standard of support. Contact someone who thinks you deserve better.
To discuss your IT needs, call Advantage on 020 3004 4600 or fill in our contact form.
