Tag Archives: MSP

Moving to the Cloud Promotes Business Growth

moving to the cloud

The number of companies moving to cloud operations is rising each year. This is not a surprise because cloud solutions are now a vital instrument for the growth and development of businesses in today’s digital world. If you have been looking for a way to scale your business and haven’t tried cloud technology, there is no better time to take the plunge than now.

How Moving to the Cloud Affects Business Growth

A multitude of businesses all over the world will attest that cloud computing has helped them grow. But how did it help? What areas of your business can benefit the most if you move your operations to the cloud? Here are the most notable positive changes that you might expect.

Scalability

This feature ranks as one of the best advantages of moving to the cloud, which people look forward to the most. Before the cloud, business expansions were almost always massive and tedious operations that required heavy investment in terms of infrastructure and hardware. But with the extensive selection of cloud resources available, growing your business has never been easier!

Should you need to downgrade for any reason, it is just as easy on the cloud. You can cancel your subscription to services you don’t need so that you can operate on a smaller scale without having to incur unnecessary losses.

Financial Savings

It is interesting how many people assume that cloud services are expensive when the opposite is true. The prices vary, as this depends on the provider. But they will only charge you for the services or resources that you use. How can you be more cost-efficient than that?

Also, moving to the cloud means you no longer need to purchase expensive on-site equipment, which can also be costly to maintain. So, businesses really can save an incredible amount by shifting their operations to the cloud.

Efficiency

A distinctive feature of cloud applications is that they are accessible from anywhere if you have the internet. So, employees don’t need to go to the office to work. They can just do their jobs from home or any other location. There is also the benefit of using automation tools, which you can set up to lessen the demand for and reliance on manual labor.

Security when Moving to the Cloud

Whether you are just starting or are well on your way to conquering your industry, there is no need to worry about security in cloud-based solutions. Impressive security features abound on the cloud, including high-tech encryption, advanced threat detection, and multi-factor authentication, which protect your data and ultimately speed up business growth.

Innovation

The cloud gives easy access to all the latest innovations in technology as soon as they come out, which is vital for growing your business. Everything, from the latest versions of applications and operating systems to the latest hardware releases in the market, will be right at your fingertips if you are on the cloud.

There you have it—the top reasons cloud technology is crucial to business growth. Through cloud computing, growing your business can be faster, simpler, more cost-efficient, and perfectly aligned with your organization’s goals.

If you would like more information, you can download this infographic of ours called The Benefits of Moving to the Cloud.” Here, you will see everything that you will miss out on if you pass on this opportunity! Do also contact us today where we will have thorough and very enlightening discussions with your businesses today.

How Will a Managed Service Provider Help Your Business?

Male IT professional working with a company's IT infrastructure and data security using a computer.

What is a Managed Service Provider (MSP)?

A Managed Service Provider (MSP) is a person who is specially trained in remotely managing a company’s IT infrastructure. They provide specific network and security solutions that assist with data loss, security breaches, and remote firewall administration. The key takeaway from their role is that they play an invaluable part in strategic IT planning and preventing destructive computer networking decisions that could have a negative impact on a business.

In this article, we will focus more on the role of this service provider, which bears an important responsibility. Indeed, at the present time, the productivity of a company depends very much on its IT infrastructure, which makes the MSP a central player in the success and development of the company.

Managed services or IT service outsourcing?

While some companies can afford to have a dedicated IT department, not all organizations can. And that’s not always the most relevant solution, either. The Managed Service Provider takes on the role of the enterprise IT department. Thus, he or she must carry out the management and maintenance of the IT department.

The mission of the MSP (Managed Service Provider) includes administrative oversight, intended to detect problems before they arise. Indeed, to ensure the sustainability of the infrastructure, it must constantly maintain the level of service necessary for the needs of the business. This, therefore, involves application updates, regular hardware checks, and software changes when relevant.

A remote service provider that saves significant time

The MSP, therefore, works externally and mainly remotely, through cloud computing. The managed service provider has a team made up of experienced people, but also very sophisticated tools. It is therefore able to operate remotely and benefits from regular automated reports which allow it to detect potential problems. He or she can thus solve them before they generate damage. It is therefore rare for MSP technicians to travel to the site, although this can happen in the event of a hardware failure.

Using sophisticated tools, the managed service provider performs software updates automatically before the expiration date. As a result, it avoids wasted time related to bugs and failures caused by software that is not up to date. It also allows you to benefit from the latest versions and thus limits security vulnerabilities in the system.

An offer adapted to the needs of the company

As the managed service provider is not an employee of the company, he or she is able to make an offer modeled on the real needs of the structure. Often, its offer depends on the number of workstations or users of the infrastructure to be managed. The contract can therefore be scalable according to the needs of the business. This operation, therefore, offers flexibility that is much more advantageous for the company than having its own IT department. Especially since it limits the administrative procedures and internal staff management.

Conclusion

This is a win/win formula, as the MSP usually does not have to intervene for outages, but if they do, it is included in their package. As a result, the more quality watch it performs, the better its profitability will be, because interventions will be less common. For the company, this approach provides the assurance of quality monitoring to ensure the proper functioning of the system.

The definition of managed services and the role of the MSP are no longer a mystery to you. In relation to outsourcing, managed services offer a more in-depth approach, and free you from all worries related to IT infrastructure. This allows you to focus on your core business without risking failures that could impact the development of your business. Contact us to learn more!

Seven Ways to Improve Your Help Desk Office Efficiency

Three women smiling and working an IT help desk with headsets and laptops

Having a team that works efficiently together takes time to build, which is why a lot of small businesses rely on SystemsNet

It would be nice if every help desk job was predictable, reliable, and ran like a well-oiled machine, but they don’t. Depending on the company, the space, the managers, and the team in question, help desk offices can be anything from a rowdy pen of adult children on phones to a structured regiment of serious professionals. Admittedly, most techs would prefer to find an employer whose help desk office is somewhere in between. The best places are the ones where your manager and co-workers take the work seriously when it matters but can still laugh off a joke or the ridiculous behavior of trouble customers, where you can have snacks but the workstations are clean, and where the quota policies make sense for both efficiency and customer service. Of course, to create an environment this functional and friendly, it takes a talented manager, a well-designed work environment, and a smooth infrastructure for the team to work with each other and the clients.

If you want to improve your help desk office efficiency, think about it from the technician’s point of view. Their work experience determines the quality of the notes and documentation created, service provided, and customer satisfaction.

1) Keep the Temperature Comfy

Office thermostats have been a well-known enemy of employees for decades. Everyone is familiar with the bizarrely uncomfortable work environments created by overzealous, inefficient, or badly programmed office thermostats. The fact of the matter is that people, like computers, have an optimal working temperature and any other temperature will become a distraction from an already complex job of solving technical problems and walking customers through understanding and accepting the solutions. Unfortunately, even two people who look identical can have slightly different temperature preferences. A great way to address this is to vote every six months on the ideal temperature, usually somewhere between 65 and 75, and then provide blankets, space heaters, or fans and cool water to those who have edge-case preferences.

2) Desk Sanitization Supplies

One of the worst ways to start a shift, especially in customer service, is to come in to a sticky, trash covered, or otherwise dirty workstation. While many offices know that desk sanitization is a good way to reduce the big waves of sick days as something travels around the office, there are actually a large number of reasons to make regular desk cleaning a policy. If every workstation is equipped with wipes or something equivalent, this allows people to sanitize after a shift, clean up any accidental messes, and make sure their station is completely clean at the beginning of a shift. This not only reduces annual sick days, it also makes starting work more pleasant.

3) Manager Rescue Policy

When you listen to tales of tech support, one theme that shows up over and over features the hero stories about managers who know exactly when to step in. When customers have gotten unduly abusive, when the problem is clearly above your authorization level, and when there’s clear indications of scamming, it’s great to know that your manager is on your side. Having a supportive manager and a policy of backing up employees on problem calls can improve the morale and confidence of the entire team.

4) Provide Hot Beverages

Tech support is not a brainless task and doing it on the phone only makes it harder. Most people don’t actually talk all day long, but this is the job and your agents are ready to do it, as long as there’s something hot to drink after the tenth consecutive call. Many offices provide coffee but it’s important to remember the dehydration effects of caffeine, not to mention that some people have a dietary restriction. Make sure to provide a form of hot water, tea bags, and hot cocoa mix as well. Hot cider is also a fun way to mix it up and keep everyone healthy.

5) Lose the Phone Tree

Your customers hate the phone tree. We don’t have to ask, it doesn’t matter what your industry is because everyone hates the phone tree. You hate phone trees. If you absolutely must have an automated operator to sort initial calls, consider reducing the branches before connecting to a human representative. The longer your customers argue with a half-deaf robot, the more likely they are to yell at your phone tech when they finally get through. No one likes getting yelled at, and this is what the phone tree creates.

6) Sound Absorbing Office Materials

The most efficient help desk offices can have dozens of techs working in the same room without disturbing each other. However, there are only a few very subtle ways to make it work. First, you need to turn the thermostat down a degree or two and second, you need sound absorbing office materials. Cube walls, light fixture covers, wall art. Any unused surface you can find that can support a soft texture can be used to reduce the amount of sound that travels across the room.

7) Modular Personalization

Personalization of the work area has always been highly debated topic in the business world. Whether employees should be allowed to personalize at all and if so, which employees do personalize is always a matter of individual office protocols. That said, permitting employees to personalize in small ways as long as there’s no mess or disturbance is a great way to make your office unique and give your team a little bit of psychological space.

In the question of shared workstations, you can even make it possible to personalize on the job and depersonalize the station at the end of the shift with individual boxes or baskets for each person who shares a shift-assigned desk.

There are many ways to make your office more supportive to your team and these are just the beginning. With the right attitude for approaching your help desk work environment, the quality of your service and even the skills and capabilities of the technicians themselves will visibly improve. Contact us today for more help desk insights.

IT Help Desk: Facing Your Customer Support Challenges (Part 2)

Confident female operator with a headset is working with colleagues at desk in an IT help desk call center

Having a team of IT Specialists available, allows an MSP to handle complex problems with ease

In our previous blog post, we discussed customer service and some of the issues that can arise during your attempt to provide the highest level of customer service. We discussed the importance of having a system in place that can help your customer support team address some of the common customer support problems you may have in your workplace.

The key issue we discussed in the previous blog was the lack of data reports. Due to the variety of data that your business or organization collects on a daily basis, you will need to be able to maintain the data that you are generating. The right IT help desk system will allow you to collect the data you need and generate reports that will allow you to analyze the data.

Another issue that you may face on a regular basis is the amount of time it takes to resolve a customer’s problem. If you are discovering that your customers are not satisfied with the resolution time, what can you do to deliver a faster response time?

Customer Support Problem #2: Issues Take Too Long To Be Resolved

Today’s customers expect their problems to be resolved in a timely manner and many customers do not want to accept a slow resolution time. Many customers will not accept that there were errors or other problems as it relates to internal problems. Your customers will want an answer to their problems and they will want it quickly.

If your customer support team does not have the proper tools to assist them, everyone on your team will struggle to resolve the problems your customers are facing. Your customers do not want to be consistently told that their issue is being transferred to someone else on the support team. If your customer support team is constantly struggling with who should be responsible for a specific ticket, you will need to reevaluate your internal processes.

Solution #2: Improve Internal Flow

Have you set aside any expectations and goals you want to have for your business? Once you establish the particular goals you want to have in your business, you will be able to share those goals with your customers so you can inform them of the expectations you have for them. When members of your support team fail to meet the expectations and goals you have set you can ensure they are aware that they did not meet the goals.

You want everyone on your support team to be on the right page so your entire business will not be set up for failure. Everyone needs the proper resources and tools to effectively identify the purpose of a ticket being created and what can be done to resolve the problem. Everyone on your team should be aware of their responsibilities and the responsibilities of their team members.

When you have an effective process in place, all members of your support team will be able to meet the team goals and the individual goals that have been set for them. When you want to meet the goals you have set for your business and the goals you have set for your team, we encourage you to face your challenges from the start. Using the right metrics and indicators will give you a better chance at success in 2020, in addition to using the right help desk and customer support software.

We understand that customer support is not predictable because your customer support team has no idea what type of problems customers will experience on a daily basis. At SystemsNet, we understand the importance of an effective IT help desk and tools that can be used to improve customer service.

For more information on how an effective IT help desk can be used to solve the customer support or customer service issues you have been facing, please do not hesitate to contact us today.