Commercial Integrator October 2022 - 12

THE SERVICE DESK
Best Practices for Handling
Aſt er-Hours Client Support
It's critical to establish clear methods and set proper expectations, as well as to be mindful
of which aſt er-hours-support approach suits your fi rm best. By Diana Giles
ALTHOUGH IT CAN VARY between the
diff erent industries of our clients, most
managed IT service providers have to off er
some type of aſt er-hours support services.
For some businesses, requests for aſt erhours
support will be rare. For those that
provide services in the retail or hospitality
verticals, it could be quite oſt en. Regardless
of the frequency of need, providing
aſt er-hours services requires some thoughtful
planning. It's imperative to ensure
that it's well executed for the good of the
provider and our clients.
What follows are the areas of consideration
that must be thought through to
successfully establish aſt er-hours support
services. Providers, whether large or small,
have the same considerations; however,
the scope and implementation will vary.
In the end, a successful plan must have
policies and procedures that go with each
of these areas.
Service
First, we must consider whether providing
aſt er-hours support is something that we, in
our business, want to do. If so, the service
decisions we make must ensure that we can
remain profi table while off ering aſt er-hours
support. And that requires asking a lot of
questions. For example, it's important to
ask these: Is aſt er-hours support a need our
clients have? If so, what is the frequency of
requests for aſt er-hours support? Will this
type of service be included in our service
plans, or will there be an additional charge?
Will it be included in some plans but excluded
from others?
Typically, most MSPs would off er some
type of aſt er-hours support, so additional
questions would be warranted. Those
might include the following: What hours/
days are considered normal business hours
versus aſt er-hours? Does our client base
have a need for 24/7 service? Would alternate
extended-support hours suffi ce?
12
If we are providing aſt er-hours service, we must make sure that clients know how to
get to that service, especially during times of frustration, when emotions run high.
Once we have the necessary information,
we can get more specifi c about how
the services would be implemented. An
IT service provider whose fi rm averages
one aſt er-hours call a month is going to
implement a much diff erent process from
a service provider whose fi rm averages 20
a week. Solopreneur providers will handle
things diff erently from larger fi rms, as well.
There are various ways of handling these
aſt er-hours requests. We must fi nd the
way that works best for our own business.
Many fi rms utilize internal staff with an
on-call rotation; others, meanwhile, have
extended working hours for their staff . A
growing trend, however, is to partner with
a helpdesk-services company.
When partnering for helpdesk services,
there are other decisions we need to make
based on our business and the services
we want to provide for our clients. Do we
require the helpdesk to be staff ed only by
technicians for whom English is the fi rst lanCommercial
Integrator OCTOBER 2022
guage? Must these technicians be based
in the United States? Obviously, one factor
is how much they charge for their services.
Outsourced helpdesk companies can be
great for tier-one support; however, if your
client base has unique situations or needs
outside the scope of normal helpdesk
issues, you might need a company that
can provide you with a dedicated team of
technicians.
Request Methods
It might not seem like it at fi rst, but the
methods used when clients need help represent
one of the most important aspects
of aſt er-hours support, as well as support
requests in general. Aſt er-hours requests
are oſt en more urgent - otherwise, people
could just wait until the next business day
- so it becomes even more imperative to
make sure that requests are received.
First, we must determine the methods
used to request aſt er-hours support. Are
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Commercial Integrator October 2022

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