Preventative Maintenance, or PM’s, are the critical part of us being able to keep customers up and running. Since the addition of a specialist to our managed services department, we have made changes to our preventative maintenance processes that will ultimately lead to far less downtime for our customers.
Before these changes, we still had a proactive approach, but had less one-on-one time with our customers, had only one team member as a point of contact for a given business, and had a more uniform approach. All of these have been changed and improved.
MORE TIME
Tony remotely monitoring networks
Since adding Mike to our managed services department, we are able to spend more one-on-one time with our customers. Long before Mike visits customers on-site, Tony has been remotely monitoring and conducting preliminary maintenance their networks. This is now only half of the new PM process. Mike then visits customers at their location for an hour. While there, he checks hardware and looks for any other signs of potential failure that remote monitoring would not catch. After this, Mike visits with the customer to bring attention to issues, makes suggestions, and ultimately ensures we are working towards seeing the big picture with our customer.
MORE PEOPLE
We do not see the health of our clients’ networks as a one-person or a one-department job. Now, more eyes are on the networks of our customers. In weekly project meetings, upcoming PM’s are discussed between the managed services and engineering departments. They come together to share knowledge and trends in our customer’s IT. More people involved, more communication shared, and more solutions are made. As Mike puts it, we are ‘eliminating the silo of information.’
MORE CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT
Monthly reporting is now a standard for PM’s. We believe in the importance of communication with our customers. We are a business partner and adviser – with that comes the responsibility of providing updates and looking to the future. Before each PM, we call our customers to let them know we will be arriving soon and arrange for the post- PM meeting. It is important that our customers are aware of and participate in the well-being of their networks.
All of these improvements add to a tailored approach to the care of our customer’s networks. We understand that no two networks are the same, they have specialty hardware, specialty software, and mobile users; with that, a cookie-cutter approach just doesn’t work. With more time spent on each PM, more of our staff involved and improved communication with our customers, we are able to create customized approaches for the health of our customer’s networks.