Something we often hear from our customers, or those considering working with us, is that they need hands-on guidance. Whether that’s a scheduled weekly call, or just someone to pick up the phone when you have an ad hoc query, your business expects guidance and support from a managed service provider.
Sadly, many organisations have been burned in the past with bad service. A company claiming to be a managed service provider, actually ends up delivering a software or hardware installation before leaving you to your own devices. You can’t get through to a human when you need advice, and you can’t get issues resolved in a timely fashion.
This is where our customers tell us Assembly Managed Services is set apart. Especially in a crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though the world – and the way you work – might be changing, our dedication to exceptional service has remained consistent. In this blog post, we explore how we’ve been delivering delight for our customers, even in the most challenging circumstances.
1. Offering you training
It’s no good being left to your own devices. We know that whether it’s cloud security and disaster recovery, or voice & video or connectivity support, you’re reaching out for help for a reason. If you don’t have the capacity or expertise to be upgrading your systems in-house, then you need an external provider who fills the gaps.
When things go wrong, you need experts who will not only fix the issue, but will arm you with the skills you need to resolve problems yourself. Assembly Managed Services doesn’t want to keep you in the dark, meaning that you’re forever reliant on us to fix issues when they arise (unless, of course, you want us to!). Peter Smith explains how Assembly Managed Services operates:
We include ongoing training and learning opportunities as standard, walking you through the process to manage your IT, cloud & communications systems. Our goal is for you to feel confident using the tools that will change your day-to-day work life, even if we are the ones monitoring and managing them for you.
One of the most evident examples of a need for training came about at the start of the pandemic, when many businesses found themselves working remotely, as Peter Smith, Managing Director at Assembly Managed Services, explains:
We found in the early stages of the pandemic, that there was a slight reluctance with video calling on unified communication. But through training and with us talking to customers about using that facility, we’ve found their lack of confidence has waned, and that it has become second nature to make a phone call using Teams, GoTo or Zoom within the companies themselves, and to a large degree when they’re talking to customers, too.
2. Keeping business as usual
For many of us, whether we have been working exclusively from home, using a combined set-up, or plan to keep remote working a part of our work lives for the foreseeable future, this has been a period of adjustment. Working from home has presented an array of challenges and it has been our prerogative to get you back up and running with ‘business as usual’ delivery as quickly as possible.
In particular, Peter Smith explains, the unified communications (UC) service is helping customers from a variety of sectors:
One of our customers in the recruitment sector is now interviewing prospects via video, whereas in the past they would have invited them into the office. So they’re lining up meetings and interviews with candidates and managing that extremely well. It’s helping our legal clients too; some of the courts are using unified communication tools for certain cases which allows them to be opened, closed and dealt with much quicker.
Helping you adapt and settle into this ‘new normal’ has become one of our leading value-adds for companies. We are always looking for ways to make your output as consistent and high quality as it was previously. We know it’s vital for businesses to give their customers the same high level of service they expected from you before the pandemic to survive and thrive into the future.
3. Promoting team togetherness
When there’s no office, no meeting rooms and no coffee breaks to get together with colleagues, you soon notice how fragmented your team can feel. It isn’t just a priority for us to help you deliver an excellent customer experience, but to encourage positive working relationships between your team.
Any industry that requires collaboration between their staff will benefit from our UC services. Communication is more important now than ever for teams, so having reliable technology to break down barriers is key to team synergy, performance and wellbeing. James Reilly, Director of Technology at Assembly Managed Services, believes this is actually a unique opportunity to promote better equality and understanding between teams:
One of the things that I’ve heard several clients mention is how they feel oddly more in touch with their team and more on a level playing field. What tended to happen before when everyone was working in different locations, was that those who were predominantly remote felt like “second-class employees”. A meeting would mean 10 people around a board table and then the remote workers dialling in using technology. But not any more.
All of a sudden, everyone in your team is in the same position, and working together towards the same goals, and Assembly Managed Services gives you the tools to do this to maximum effect.
4. Simplifying your workload
This might just be the perfect opportunity to revisit some of your processes. Now that you’re taken out of your usual work environment – and your internal structures or people power might have changed – it’s a good time to take a closer look at how you work. For many businesses, this often means simplifying your work styles, and creating better efficiencies, which Assembly Managed Services can help you with.
Many of these problems exist in an office environment, but they’re likely to be exacerbated now that your team is working remotely. Things such as cumbersome documentation processes, time-consuming or insecure security systems and disjointed communication methods mean that people waste time, James Reilly has noticed that:
A common issue that clients face is a lack of, or slow collaboration between members of their team. You can email things to each other, but then that process is quite slow and plodding, and things always get missed. You might end up with duplication of effort.
Delegating and ensuring everyone knows their responsibilities is key. Keeping projects moving forward in a timely manner – especially now – is every business’ priority. This can be achieved if you use tools to focus your team, and work to everyone’s strengths.
James Reilly explains that even the smallest changes, with input from Assembly Managed Services, can make the biggest difference to your team’s workload:
Even coming down to the very basic, technical level, your Exchange and mailbox stores are suddenly exploding with data because everyone’s emailing everything instead of the usual face-to-face conversations. Instead, they could be having a very quick conversation, screenshare and look at everything without the need for paperwork.
5. Speeding up internet connection
If you’re one of the very few people who hasn’t struggled with internet connectivity through the pandemic then we’re envious. With so many more of us online, many home workers have been experiencing severe and intrusive outages over the past few months. Assembly Managed Services helps your home environment reach the same connectivity of your office.
This is an incredibly common problem – but not one without a solution, as Peter Smith explains:
Sometimes customers have bandwidth issues. There are clients that hadn’t geared up to work from home previously, and they’re running off poor-quality connection circuits, such as ADSL. A lot of UC tools are a little bit more bandwidth hungry, so we’ve been rolling out a very fast, high-grade internet service, using Fibre to the Cabinet (FttC) and equivalents, which is transformational.
Enabling teams to work efficiently and without frustrations is something we specialise in. The last thing you need right now is video calls that crash, or not being able to access your inbox. Assembly Managed Service will start with an audit of your connectivity to establish your current speeds and then we’ll recommend where improvements can be made.
We are proud to say that Assembly Managed Services has many happy customers at the moment. Despite stretched budgets and financial uncertainty, many businesses are choosing to continue their relationships with us because of the hands-on service they receive.
We hope that your business sees that making an investment in a managed service provider now is a way of future-proofing your business, no matter how long the effects from the pandemic last.
Talk to one of our specialists today to learn more about our remote working capabilities; how we’re bringing people, business and technology together; and what this means for you.
