The Result of Slow Response Times From Your IT Support Provider
The time it takes for your IT support company to respond to your issues is one of the most important attributes of any IT support company. The impact of slow response times can be varied and wide-ranging. In this blog post, we investigate the impact that a slow response time can have on your business.
Inactive employees cost money, can’t make revenue and are a distraction.
When one of your employees contacts your outsourced help desk, they are inevitably experiencing a technical issue. This is likely to mean that they aren’t able to work. Therefore, how quickly your IT support company reacts and can fix that problem is linked directly to how quickly that person can return to work.
Due to the reliance on technology in the modern workplace whilst that employee is waiting for their issue to be resolved, there is a likelihood that they aren’t able to carry on with their day-to-day. Instead, they will stop what they’re doing and usually keep themselves occupied by making a cup of tea. Whilst this in itself isn’t an issue, breaks are to expected and things do go wrong, the longer the IT company takes to respond, the more that short break can turn into a wait.
This can be a problem when extended over a long time. That employee earns a salary, of which you’re not making a return if they’re not working. What’s more, if they contribute to your means of making revenue, they are also unable to do that. Furthermore, these employees can become a distraction to the rest of your workforce. Whilst they make a hot drink, they may interact with other team members distracting them from their duties. This costs more time and money.
As alluded to, this isn’t necessarily an issue, if your IT team are providing a timely response. No individual works 100% of the time. There are natural pauses in the day and it’s good to encourage a positive culture in your workplace in which colleagues talk with one another and get along. However, if the response time from your IT company is slow, these pauses can soon become needlessly long, and that is when the cost, lack of revenue and further disturbances may become a concern.
Frustrated employees can experience a drop in morale.
In addition to the lack of activity, those employees that are affected by slow response times are likely to become frustrated, particularly if it happens regularly, or if the delay is stopping them from working on something particularly important. In turn, frustration can result in a decrease in morale, which in turn has more negative effects.
This may sound this a large leap, but in the context of a business, it starts to make sense. Imagine if every time your employee has a problem with their tech, they have to wait 30 minutes for a response. To be clear we’re talking about a response here, not a resolution. Just the time it takes to hear from your IT company. The first time this happens, the individual affected is likely to be okay with it. They will find something else to do and make the best of a bad situation. After all, no technology is infallible.
Should it happen again, it’s likely the employee will get on with things again, but by the third or fourth-time frustration may start to creep in. Slow response times are now getting in the way of their work, and that could have larger ramifications with team leaders or bosses. This can then result in employees getting anxious about their tech failing them. They may even start avoiding the IT support function entirely. This is not a good situation!
Computer issues happen for a reason and when they do, you want them to be resolved. Failure to do so can have knock of effects that may not be completely obvious to a non-technical individual. They may also leave a computer or system vulnerable to cyber attacks that could have far-reaching and large detrimental impacts on the entire business and its clients. Something that started off as seemingly trivial, like a slow response, can over time escalate into something much larger and potentially more damaging for an organisation.
Slow response times can mean a poor experience for your customers too.
A slow response time from your IT company doesn’t just mean a potentially negative experience for your employees. It can also result in a negative experience for your customers. Firstly, if you are experiencing an issue with a public-facing system you want your IT company to respond quickly to avoid any reputational damage. For example, if your telephone system fails, you want reassurance that time required to fix it will be quick so that your customers don’t form a negative opinion of your own business.
Whilst there may be little you can do about such an issue directly, clients, potential customers or suppliers aren’t likely to see it this way. Instead, any technical issues that remain unfixed for a sustained period are likely to reflect badly on you rather than the IT company that supports your systems.
Even if your tech isn’t public-facing if an employee is struggling with something they may not be able to deliver the customer experience you expect of them. Whilst many customers will give companies some allowance for technical issues, after all, things can go wrong, frequent downtime that takes a long time to be resolved will have people forming negative opinions about your business in the long run. What’s worse, is these opinions, once set can be very difficult to change.
IT support from Acronyms.
Here at Acronyms, we provide responsive IT support that can get your employees back on task quickly. Our team of experienced IT engineers can support your workforce remotely via the internet, over the phone or in person at your place of work. To arrange your no-obligation consultation from one of the team today please get in touch.