 |
What do we Mean by Support
Contracts?
Traditional support contracts are based purely on the concept of ‘if it breaks,
we’ll fix it’. Typically such a contract would have very specific service levels set
and these would dictate what equipment is covered and the response times to any
service calls that should be placed.
The
Challenge
We found that it was common with such contracts for a situation to arise where
a call out of the scope of the agreement should be placed. This often raises
a quandary because the failed equipment may be vital, but in the absence of an
agreement a service level cannot be adhered to without incurring additional
charges. To avoid the “that’s not our problem” scenario we created the concept of
Customer Care.
This is in essence an enhanced service contract covering all
possible scenarios. Typically Customer Care contracts are taken by companies
that do not have the available resources for in-house IT support and wish to
outsource these issues to a local company for quite often significantly less money
than a dedicated IT person.
Benefits of Customer Care
Customer Care contracts are tailored to the individual
company and can bring all the following benefits:
- Equipment maintenance (on a fixed service level)
- Fixed Budget contracts with no hidden extras
and predictable costs.
- Preventative maintenance (routine processes to minimise the chances of equipment failing)
- Scheduled visits (there will always be duties that do not justify calling out an
engineer. These can be covered during a scheduled visit at a frequency
suitable to the customer)
- Inventory Control (helps precisely track equipment on site, trends in faulty
equipment and enables production of more accurate statistics)
- Offsite backup storage (many banks and insurance companies now insist
that data vital to the running of your business is regularly backed up and the
media stored away from the customer’s premises.)
- Sickness or vacation cover (if the company’s dedicated IT personnel were
indisposed then they would have to arrange for some form of cover.
With Customer Care, ESP absorbs any leave or sickness of our employees
thus giving a continuity of service)
- Spread of expertise (if the company had dedicated IT personnel it may be that
their knowledge is limited in some aspects. With Customer Care they benefit
from the vast range of experience that all of ESP’s engineers possess)
- Proactive Systems Consultancy (the company may not have the in house
expertise to formulate an IT strategy and typically their development will be
on an ‘as needed’ basis. ESP can write a Strategic Systems Plan for the
company which is a four stage consultancy methodology comparing business
objectives against a continual program of systems development. In this
manner ESP can be proactive in helping the customer with their IT systems)
To find out how you can benefit from the ESP experience call 0118 916 9300
now or send an e-mail to sales@esp.co.uk
Back
|
|
|
|
|
|
