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New KnowManager Managed Services Offerings: Coverage Flexibility
Taylor Pohlman, VP of Managed Services for Know Technology, says the company has been working hard to improve and extend the KnowManager services offerings. “We wanted to increase the flexibility that we provide to clients”, says Pohlman. “Rather than putting the client into one category or another, we want to provide the right level of support for each part of their infrastructure.” Some clients want to manage parts of their system, such as the workstations, he said, and have us take care of the complex server environment . Others need remote phone support for some of their users, and want on-site support for their main office. “We found that we needed to add some options and some flexibility to the offering in accommodate those needs”, said Pohlman. “And in the process, we can often save our clients money by giving them just what they need”.
The base offering, “Monitor”, consists of remote monitoring services that allow KnowManager to get information from client systems and networks on a continuous 24-hour basis. If anything falls outside of set limits, or if there is a failure, alerts are automatically sent from KTL’s data center to staff personnel, and to the client’s staff, if requested. “That gives us an edge in responding”, says Pohlman. “If we had to wait to hear from the client that something was wrong, we’d be just be adding to the time it takes to get things working again”, he said. “With KnowManager alerting, we’re typically calling the client and letting them know about the problem, and in some cases, we can fix an issue without even needing to call them. One of our clients even uses our monitoring to know which of their users need help”, says Pohlman. “They opted for our monitoring on the workstations and phones, so they can respond quicker with their internal support people.”
The second level of support under the new KnowManager services offering is “Maintain”. “Maintain builds on Monitor”, says Pohlman. “By using our remote tools, we can update servers and firewalls and workstations, and address disk space shortages or backup issues that show up as we monitor their environment.” Maintenance is designed to reduce the likelihood of an outage, and take advantage of the latest. “Servers these days are very sophisticated” says Pohlman. “Keeping everything up-to-date and tuned for performance takes expertise that most of our clients don’t need on-staff full time. Having us do this remotely saves time and money for them.” Pohlman also reports that the Maintain level of service can manage a client’s subscriptions and renewals. “Letting an anti-virus subscription or a service contract lapse can be a big and potentially costly issue for our clients” says Pohlman. “Many of them want the assurance that not only are the updates being applied to their systems, but also the agreements are tracked and auto-renewed. KTL’s advanced service tracking systems are designed to make such processes reliable and worry-free”, said Pohlman.
Building on Monitor and Maintain are two levels of Support. The first is Remote Support. “The Remote Support option is a new offering for us”, says Pohlman. “Some of our clients have their servers in our Data Center, so we don’t need to go on-site to service them. Other clients save money by having us remotely log on to the servers and workstations in their offices to make fixes or help them perform tasks. They like the idea of using our Service Desk, but usually don’t need us to be there in person. That saves us time and travel costs, and we pass the savings on to them. In the event we need to go on-site to fix something, there is an hourly charge for the service.”
Some clients, however, like the security and predictable budgeting that full On-site Support provides. “In addition to 800# Service Desk that does Remote Support, On-site Support means that we will fix any problem on covered equipment or software under the monthly fee, whether we do it remotely, or need to come on-site to resolve it. We also schedule proactive monthly visits with our On-Site Support clients to make sure that everything is operating properly, and that any client requests are addressed.” said Pohlman. In addition to monthly reporting, we also schedule quarterly reviews of the client’s environment, and make suggestions that will improve their efficiency and reliability. “Client’s appreciate that we are thinking about their IT infrastructure and ways to make it work better”, said Pohlman. “that’s part of being an IT partner.”
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