In our decades of experience building and optimizing clients’ technology, we have seen time and again many companies lack basic IT support. The reasons are numerous. Their IT staff may be overworked or may not possess the technical expertise needed. Many times IT Support consists of an employee with other responsibilities shouldered with the additional burden of being the technology support for the office or firm. Smaller firms may not need (or afford) fulltime IT support so they muddle through or react to IT issues once they become critical and keep staff from working.
Advance2000 recognized these challenges and developed our own unique service and support offerings. Our own Manager of Services and Support, Charles Harrington, explained how we can help these organizations.
“We realized throughout the years that companies want to be able to focus on their business, and not IT and the challenges that come with it.”
Charles Harrington – Manager of Service and Support
There are other reasons a company might not have adequate IT support. IT Support is often outsourced to companies that don’t understand their business or just don’t have the technical acumen to address the needs of the firm. Many companies also don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to IT. They might have trouble communicating their needs and problems to an IT provider. There can be mis-communication between the vendor and the non-technical staff seeking help. All these concerns can increase frustration and lead to a poor IT Support experience.
Advance2000 IT Support solutions specifically address these issues.
“We approach support in a way to take the burden off our partners while still providing that in-house IT feel when calling into our service desk.” Harrington said.
THE IT SUPPORT YOU NEED WHEN YOU NEED IT
When asked what makes Advance2000’s Support Department so unique, Harrington answered, “We take the IT challenges and frustrations away from users so they can focus on their jobs and business tasks.
We know IT issues are not what users want to focus on. Our goal is to provide the best customer experience by being empathetic, providing direction, consulting, and owning an issue to resolution. We will always help guide and provide the best direction to move forward. Here at Advance2000, we build a culture to always be helpful and to find a solution.
We want to establish a true partnership and relationship with companies and their users. Advance2000 has trained technical support specialists to take calls in our call center 24/7/365 with escalation afterhours options. We want users to connect with knowledgeable people who can accurately diagnose an issue as well as establish a good relationship with the individual calling in. Ultimately, we want to be an extension of our partners. Once this is adapted, we find that it becomes much easier for partner’s users to call in and work with our staff. An example of that is our high survey feedback where on average we poll a 98% positive experience response.”
WHO IS ADVANCE2000 SUPPORT?
“Our service desk resources are true system administrators and are not here to just reset passwords.’” Harrington explained, “We fully manage customer systems ranging from cloud, on-premise, Microsoft Windows, antivirus, phone systems, networks, and more.”
“Our Service Desk Team is always working to keep ahead of training needs and knowledge; it’s understood that technology is always changing.” He continued, “Therefore, training is a top priority for our organization. We have a full-time corporate trainer to align with this goal to provide technical, soft skills, and personal development training.”
A HELPING HAND
The organizations we support often have an internal IT person or team of people, and they are proficient IT professionals. However, as any IT department can attest, the day-to-day tasks of keeping the business running can occupy a team’s attention full time. When something out of the ordinary happens, or when the IT department is overwhelmed, that’s when we’re called in.
“Advance2000 is made up of 80% Engineers,” Harrington explained, “This is to ensure we have the professionalism and expertise needed for any IT challenge. One of the biggest benefits of partnering with Advance2000 is our partners do not need to hire specific expert personnel and place them on their payroll when Advance2000 already has the expertise needed.”
When the IT department of an organization needs temporary help, or additional support for a specific project, they appreciate the ability to reach a certified expert to assist immediately.
“When partnering with Advance2000, our partners obtain access to industry experts who can properly consult and assist with any IT needs.”
PREMIUM SUPPORT IS A CLICK OR CALL AWAY
Advance2000 provides technical support in a unique way unlike most other IT firms. After hearing countless tales of previous support failures, we structured our premium support offerings in tiers to provide the precise level of service support needed. All it takes for our partners to reach a helpdesk engineer is a phone call or email to our service desk or a ticket submitted through our Client Login.
“What is great about these premium support plans is that they allow Advance2000 to be more proactive.” Harrington explained, “The ability to identify technical trends, environment issues, and more, allows us to work closely and counsel our partners on industry standard recommendations to resolve chronic issues.” He points out that these support plans are especially helpful for organizations with a small (or non-existent) IT departments. “Typically, identifying these trends are a big challenge for those who may not have all the expertise in-house.”
PREMIUM IT HOSTED SUPPORT
Advance2000 provides three different levels of support for our hosted environments. Our clients can choose from Bronze, Silver, and Gold IT Support plans, each structured to deliver a varying mix of services.
“We typically see partners go with Premium Gold Support plan when moving their services to Advance2000 Cloud.” Harrington said, “The reason for this is because it includes all the managed services needed for the partner: Service Desk support, fully managed Windows patching and updates with scheduled maintenance, monitoring services and NOC team, and full documentation.”
PREMIUM ON-PREMISE SUPPORT
“For those partners who would like to keep infrastructure at their office locations we see them lean towards our premium on-premise support plan which has a lot of similarities to the premium cloud support plans. This allows Advance2000 to fully manage our partners IT Environment and be a single point of contact for any technical concerns.”
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU PARTNER WITH ADVANCE2000
Advance2000 knows it can be challenging when switching IT Providers, Managed Service Providers (MSP), or moving from local IT to an MSP. Even a collaborative effort between local IT and Advance2000 Support services can take time to adjust to the new partnership. That’s why Harrington’s team and the entire Advance2000 organization are ready with our Partner Onboarding Process.
To meet the challenges most companies face when partnering with each other, Harrington said, “Advance2000’s goal is to simplify those challenges. Our trained Solutions Architects, Account Managers, Project Managers and Engineering Team collaborate closely on the technical challenges or needs a partner might be experiencing. We work closely with our partners’ contact and communicate on a regular basis to ensure a clear, effective, and clean transition.”
A typical flow can consist of the following:
Whichever step of the process you’re on, always know you’ll have a resource at Advance2000 to answer questions, address your needs, and keep your infrastructure running optimally.
CONTACT US TODAY
Do you have any questions about Advance2000 Support and Services? We’re happy to discuss our offerings and help optimize your business processes as your IT Support partner.
