Anyone who has visited the beach with a young family in tow knows the experience can be taxing. It’s not a gas-and-go proposition; the level of preparation involved in delivering more than one child to the shore for a day of fun can be time-consuming.
Sunscreen is only the beginning. There are beach toys, snacks, beverages, plastic utensils, baggies for storing the food, hats, umbrellas, storage for wallets/keys, cooler, transport wagon, etc. And when you’re sure that you’ve forgotten something, there’s a 100% chance you’ve forgotten something. Ah, beach blankets and towels! One could certainly add to this list, depending on neediness of said children.
In the era of COVID-19, visiting a client can be equated with a day at the beach. Under normal circumstances, making deliveries or service calls carries its own weight of due diligence. Throw in facemasks, hand sanitizer, equipment sanitizer, temperature checks and other variables common or specific to certain customers, and you’ve got the makings of a level one headache.
The world of IT has its blessings in that there is much that can be delivered in a remote fashion. But dealers are old pros by now, and know that in-person client visits can be unique challenges offering their own set of hazards. As part of July’s State of the Industry report on delivering IT solutions in a pandemic, we’ve asked our dealer panel to provide insight into how they’ve been able to skirt around the various obstacles to doing business.
Fully Prepared
Stephanie Keating Phillips, director of solutions for Advanced Imaging Solutions of Minnetonka, Minnesota, notes it has been “business as usual” for the dealer’s technical team for break/fix as well as solution and on-site IT support. “We have worked with our clients to ensure the safety of their staff as well as when coming into buildings to work with their teams or fix devices,” she said. “We have made sure that our team is fully equipped with alcohol to wipe down devices prior to and after fixing a device as well as wearing masks, gloves, etc. Anything that can be installed or supported remotely, we offer as first option or give the client the choice.”
Phillips added that Advanced Imaging Solutions has had numerous installations during the last few months, and takes all necessary precautions recommended by the CDC. And while training sessions and face-to-face meetings are not currently taking place, web conferencing tools have enabled the dealer to offer a more personal touch.
Doing business in a COVID-19 environment entailed investing much time and energy understanding all of the requirements, regulations and best practices emerging from the situation, notes Brad Cates, president and CEO of Cincinnati-based Prosource. Cates equated the rapidly-changing circumstances to “drinking from a fire hose,” thus the dealer mobilized teams to ensure it was adjusting and adapting as the pandemic unfolded.
“We fundamentally knew that we needed to do everything we could to keep our people and customers safe, and that so many of our customers were still in business and needed us. Those were our two guiding principles,” Cates said.
“For customer needs that required on-site service, we deferred to the needs of both our service technicians and our customers. We offered our techs flexibility based on their comfort levels in different environments. We also over-complied with PPE such as gloves, sanitizing solutions, and masks to keep our team and our customers safe during that process. And ultimately, we deferred to our customers – what did they want and not want us to do while we were on-site? Ultimately, as an essential business, we knew we would continue to provide service to our customers, but we wanted to do it the right way.”
Reliable Factor
Jeff Loeb, senior vice president of technologies at Prosource, points out that a lion’s share of managed IT work was already done remotely. Pre-pandemic, the dealer would be on-site to further build and strengthen its relationship with the client. Now, perhaps as much as ever, Prosource aims to maintain that reliability factor.
“Throughout this process, we’ve proven to ourselves and to our customers that we really can handle most of their IT needs remotely, except for the few things that require us to be on-site such as installing new equipment and repairing hardware,” he said. “We have continued to do that, following all social distancing and PPE guidelines.”
For Applied Imaging of Grand Rapids, Michigan, it was simply a matter of converting as many functions to a remote delivery method as possible, such as connectivity and training. In instances where physical goods required delivery, drivers and techs were geared to the hilt with PPE (including coveralls that let through only one micron).
“We communicated with customers ahead of time to ensure they do not have any active cases, and if they did, we would coordinate a different delivery time so that our staff was not impacted,” according to President John Lowery. “We rescheduled deliveries to areas that were hit the hardest, and the customers there were very accommodating.”
Chas Arnold, the vice president of IT services for Novatech, based in Nashville, Tennessee, notes that doing business in the pandemic is harder on the IT side in some regards, in comparison to the copier business. This is primarily in regards to securing net-new business as opposed to delivery. Ordinarily, the dealer could count on procuring, at a minimum, two or three new accounts in which the client was dissatisfied with the incumbent provider. Meanwhile, the copier side had no trouble getting installations or break/fix calls fulfilled; techs and delivery people (particularly early on) were able to come and go without any interaction with the client, beyond being let in to do work.
IT sales success has been a mixed bag, highly dependent on geography. Arnold notes the dealer’s offices in Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee, have been abuzz with in-person conference room meetings (following PPE protocol, as “people are being smart about it”). But for its Texas salesforces in Dallas/Fort Worth and Irving, in-person meetings are not happening. “It will be interesting to see how things shake out over the next couple of months, whether customers will let our salespeople come in,” Arnold said. “And when there are more people in the office, will it become more difficult to install copiers? Only time will tell.”
