We asked Steve, our IT Support Operations Manager, an important question of 2020 & 2021 in the world of IT Support. Who knows… it might be the kick that remote working has been longing for and change things permanently!
STEVE: Fundamentally, nothing has changed, from a client perspective. The objective through Covid-19 for support provision, has been that everything has remained the same. With technology as it is, remote working CAN be the norm. Sitting at home, you still have the same access to all the same tools as you do in the office, to be able to do your job regardless. We’ve been fortunate enough that our support functions for the IT Support team, our 1st, 2nd and 3rd line engineers can continue to provide the same level of service with access to all the tools they need remotely, at home or in the office.
Currently, we are operating a split shift, with half the team at home and half in the office, mainly to just minimise the impact of Covid-19, if we had a positive case.
From a customer perspective then, they will just see business as usual, whether that engineer is sat at home or sat in the office, they will not know the difference either way.
In addition, what we have seen throughout the pandemic is a demand for out of hours support, or increased hours of support. This may be due to the way they are now working with flexible hours etc. The likelihood is that these changes will remain permanent, so we have responded to that, and now can provide a 24/7 support as well. Some customers can take this or can take an extended hours contract with us. For example, they make take a Monday to Friday contract with an extension to 10pm, with weekend support. It all depends on the way they work, so all our contracts are bespoke and tailored for each customer
