1. This could be the client that really messes things up and then happily pays for your services to straighten things out, or
2. This client could really be smart, capable of learning the technology well, and make you earn every dollar you bill them, or
3. This client will continue to break stuff and only call you once he or she is stuck in the deepest quagmire, and then fiddle with you over your service charge.
Either way, the weakened economy and the “Bubbas” in our industry are forcing more customers to take matters in their own hands. Maybe it is because they have been burnt one too many times by an unskilled technician or because, as more and more people are doing, they think they can save a few bucks by doing things themselves. After all, more and more people are pursuing the DIY path to PC repairs.
In most cases, the age old saying “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” comes true, and the customer realizes that they have probably made things worse. In this case, they solicit the service of a professional company and get things fixed properly.
Alternatively, the customer is able to fix most of the things and then hires a professional company to put finishing touches on the project. In both these cases, the consumer is becoming more informed and is able to distinguish the professionals from the Bubbas. So as a value-added-reseller, you need to set yourself apart from the Bubbas, and that requires a two-fold approach: One is to excel in the technology that you are supporting and the other is deliver those services with the utmost integrity and business sense.
Finally, if you have clients that are of the third type, do yourself a favor and run—not walk but run away as fast as you can. Those are people that know just enough to be a menace, and if you continue to service them, you are entering a win/loose relationship where you are on the loosing end. If you are a value-added reseller that incorporates consulting into your business (don’t we all?), then make a rule to abandon the bottom ten percent of your clients. You know, the ones that call once every six months and expect you out on a Sunday morning to install who knows what, asking a million unrelated questions, and you keep doing it in the hopes of an eventual big order. This will never materialize, by the way. When that time comes, this client will order from his cousin, Ernie, but the client didn’t want to bother ol’ Ern on a Sunday morning because his time is more valuable than yours.
Welcome to the wonderful world of value-added services!
You will notice that abandoning the bottom ten percent of clientele (who take up the most time and make you the least money) will free up time, thereby allowing you to focus on the rest of the clients that make you money. You will have the time to pick up the phone and ask how they are doing and see what other needs they have that you could fulfill. The least this will do is strengthen the relationship with your customer. But more often than not, you will find your customers appreciating your efforts and it will help build a “top-of-the-mind” awareness for you. This way, the next time they have a computing need, they will think of you first because you took the time to communicate with them on a regular basis.
You could also use the time to build on your existing knowledge base and add new skill sets that will distinguish you from the rest of the crowd. As a reseller, you should be well versed in the four general areas that make up Information Technology, namely hardware, software, networking, and security.
The point is that many times the cause of the computer problem is not what it originally appears to be, and if the technician is not a jack of all trades, he/she will spend a lot of time tracking down ghosts. Also, to troubleshoot most any problem on a network, additional knowledge is required.
The first step in not becoming a Bubba is a good functional knowledge of these four areas. Many technicians fail to gain a broad spectrum of knowledge in these areas because they become good at that one thing that they specialize in. However, when they try to troubleshoot a problem, they fail to realize that sometimes computer problems manifest themselves in very different ways. An example of this could be the following:
You get a call from the client stating that the PC crashes on a daily basis. You send the Marine (your support technician) out to do the scouting and investigate the issue. He finds, according to the event viewer or dump file, that there is an issue with the video card driver. So the tech spends several hours trying to reload the video driver, re-installing Windows, performing Windows updates, hardware replacement, and driver reloads, and yet the PC keeps crashing. After more troubleshooting, you finally find out that the actual issue is the fact that the memory stick is not properly seated into the slot.
The point is that many times the cause of the computer problem is not what it originally appears to be, and if the technician is not a jack of all trades, he/she will spend a lot of time tracking down ghosts. Also, to troubleshoot most any problem on a network, additional knowledge is required. If someone doesn’t understand basic networking, TCP/IP configurations, or how hardware and software interact, they will spend numerous hours in a clueless state and will be learning at your client’s expense. Here is where certification can help. We are not talking about a trained monkey working with canned software but someone that has the proper mix of hands-on experience and the right knowledge to handle the complexity of the project.
With the amount and variation of certification training available in the market place, it has become unclear which path to pursue. Starting with choices of vendor-neutral and vendor-specific certifications, trying to strike a good balance of certifications in the hardware, software, networking and security fields, and not knowing what will be hot and what not all make this a tough decision. Investing time and money and not getting a measurable return is very frustrating, so it is important to make sure that you align the certification path complementing your business strategy and goals and not necessarily follow certification hype like a lemming. Analyze your requirements for the coming years based on technologies and services you plan to offer.
Let us start by looking at the vendor-specific and vendor-neutral certifications.
Vendor-specific certifications will help you improve knowledge and skill for a specific vendor or product. Vendor-specific certifications are generally less expensive and easier to acquire. The vendor will benefit from more product sales, and you will benefit from being able to bill as a specialist on the vendor’s product. The downside is that you are not getting skilled on broad, industry-wide, required, fundamental knowledge, and once the vendor’s product goes obsolete, so does your knowledge.
Vendor-neutral certifications will offer a broader, more general level of knowledge. They usually take longer to acquire and can be more costly compared to vendor-specific certifications. They do not align with any specific product or vendor but rather give you knowledge that you can apply to a broad industry spectrum.
A good example to illustrate the difference between vendor-specific and vendor-neutral certification is that of “Security Professional”. To an uninformed individual, it may appear that a CCSP (Cisco Certified Security Professional) and a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) are probably equivalent certifications. However, CISSP is a vendor-neutral certification and CCSP is a vendor-specific certification. So while CISSP focuses on the fundamentals and concepts of security in all aspects of IT, CCSP focuses on designing and deploying security solutions using the architecture and products marketed by Cisco Systems.
Once you have decided whether you want to focus on a vendor-specific or vendor-neutral certification, you are still left with the arduous task of making sense out of the different certification levels offered in each area of IT.
For beginners, consideration should include looking at the A+, MCDST, and Network+ certifications. CompTIA (Computing Industry Technology Association) offers the A+ and Network+ as vendor-neutral certifications. A technician must understand all parts of the inner workings at the PC level, and the A+ as a standard entry level certification should be an absolute minimum to get started in this industry. Individuals with this designation would normally have proven their competency in the broad knowledge of core hardware and operating systems.
Taking this a step further, though, the A+ coupled with Network+ will combine the aforementioned skills with basic networking knowledge, from network hardware and protocols to network services on a topical level. This ensures the ability to troubleshoot basic network issues.
The MCDST (Microsoft Certified Desktop Technician) as a vendor-specific certification will cover a broad range of Windows desktop systems currently available in the market. This credential focuses on customer service skills, how to educate end users, and solveing hardware or software operation and application problems on the desktop. It does not, however, cover network administration.
So here we have a mix of certifications that, if acquired by a support technician, will give you the most return on investment. You will have all the basic fundamentals of troubleshooting technical issues with a good mix of customer service skills. Now, that is almost unheard of. As a value-added reseller, you communicate to the market that your technicians have successfully undergone comprehensive, rigorous training and that they meet a defined standard of quality. This ultimately instills trust and confidence in your customers and prospects, and reinforces a commitment to quality. Technology, integrity, and business sense form an interesting mix. If you can successfully achieve the three in your daily business processes, you will already be a big step ahead of the competition.
In future columns, I will try to go into details of the types of certifications available in the four pillar areas of IT. Since we always want to balance business sense with technical expertise, we will also look at the components of a good technical proposal. Many customers complain about receiving proposals that are either too small, too confusing, or too detailed. So getting a good balance is important from a business point of view.
Finally, another key area of customer frustration is having to deal with a technician that does not listen, doesn’t explain anything, or, worst of all, has a condescending attitude. In the past, I have found that customers are very understanding if you just acknowledge their pains and make them feel comfortable while they are with you. I wish there was a certification for that.
|
