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The Advantages Of On-Boarding

by Mel McCormack | October 23, 2018 | Products & Services | 0 Comments

Why spend time and money on boarding new clients is something that often springs to mind when you think of managed services. Surely you just sign up the client and resolve any issues that may arise. Simples, right?

Wrong.

As in any relationship, in order to support your new client you have to understand them, their IT and what it means to them. In order to do this successfully, you need to have a rigorous on boarding process in place before you start.

Supporting Documentation Is Key

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You not only need to understand their business and IT requirements you need good supporting documentation. It is not possible for every engineer in your support team to have an in-depth understanding of every client, but it is important that they can quickly obtain the necessary information to resolve client problems in the fastest way possible.

Good Understanding Improves Service

When I started in IT some 30 years ago I was working on IBM mainframes. There were a lot of books to support those beasts. My first manager said to me “I do not expect you to know how to fix the issues but I do expect you to know where to find the information and how to apply it when you have found it”.  

Not much has changed since then, while it is important to understand your clients it is equally important to not only have the relevant documentation but to ensure all your staff can locate it quickly and understand how to use it.

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A Perfect Combination

Here at ICE ICT I am proud we have a really strong on boarding process which allows us to understand our clients and their requirements. We not only spend time with the client to understand their business and their expectation, we also create a lot of initial documentation which is available to all engineers in advance of the client being handed over to operations.

The documentation typically contains equipment inventories, network schematics, application data flows, 3rd party endpoints, responsibility matrix, escalation procedures and more. This allows for a much smoother bedding in process for the client and reduces frustrations on the service desk where people are unable to understand what they are supposed to be supporting.

To learn more about our on boarding process, contact us directly using this form.

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