Running A Business That Provides Successful IT Support Is More Than Technical Know How. It Takes A Company With Excellent Soft Skills As Well.
If you remember the Saturday Night Live skit Nick Burns Your Company’s Computer Guy, featuring Jimmy Fallon, you’ll remember that his character is overly insulting and arrogant to say the least. Nick uses technical language over people’s heads to instruct them on how to use their computers. While he does end up fixing their issues, he turns around and makes fun of them for their lack of technical jargon and knowledge. The skit is a great work of satire. However, the reason it is so funny, is that historically this is how people think about IT professionals and the companies they work for. While the computing knowledge and digital networking skills are, indeed, used as prime job requirements, in order to provide successful IT support, important soft skills are considered as necessary.
What Are Soft Skills?
In the information technology industry, technical skills are absolutely necessary. However, technicians that have excellent soft skills and customer service experience will be the ones that set themselves apart from those professionals that do not. Another term for soft skills are People Skills. These include the ability to listen, problem solve, resolve conflicts, creative thought processes, communication skills and empathy. In a customer based environment such as managed IT services, soft skills are essential to provide successful IT support.
People Skills Are An Opportunity To Provide Successful IT Support
As a managed IT services provider, we are always in need of creating that balance between the speed at which we are able to resolve problems and the level of quality for the service we provide. When a computer or technical problem arises, providing a sense of urgency in response is always key. However, poor customer service has proven to be the number one reason a customer will move to another IT provider.
In most cases for IT companies, customer service feedback will fall on either excellent or poor. One doesn’t hear too often about service that was just OK. For example, a restaurant may get complaints if a server was rude or the food was terrible. On the other side, they will get a five star review for exquisite food quality or service that was above and beyond expectations. You generally, won’t hear about good food delivered at a reasonable price, because that is what ALL restaurants are supposed to do. At MetroTech, we go out of our way to emphasize our people skills and customer service as a way to provide extra value to your organization when a technical problem occurs.
Customer Service Is A Mindset, Not A Department
For us, customer service is part of our daily routine. We believe service is an absolute cornerstone to our success.
We Don’t Ignore Customer Complaints
Like any business, we are not perfect. Even we will get a customer complaint on occasion and when we do, we listen and understand. This is valuable feedback and it is an opportunity to learn how to run our business better. Finding creative solutions to complaints can often turn a poor service problem into an opportunity to please our clients.
Never Stop Learning
When you look at the most successful people n the world, they count learning and education as a priority. Our technicians desire for individual learning not only helps our organization, it also helps them grow as people.
Put Current Customers First
While getting new customers is great, we find putting our service efforts into our existing clients proves to be a more valuable customer retention strategy. As a managed IT services company, pursuing ways to exceed our clients’ expectations is the best way to generate word of mouth advertising and ultimately referrals for new business.
Listen To And Capitalize On Customer Feedback
Instead of waiting for complaints to roll in, we ask for feedback a lot. It is the most constructive way we know on how to improve our business practices.
For Successful IT Support For Your Business, Choose MetroTech Managed IT Services
Having a technology service provider that keeps your business on the cutting edge of technology is fundamental to your business. Having a technology provider that does that alongside excellent customer service strengthens your partnership. We offer a full line of technology solutions for your business needs. Learn more about some of our premier services here or call us today at 727-230-0332 for a FREE assessment of your business technology.
It’s time to find the right IT provider for your business.