At Source, we define resiliency as the ability to deliver tech service and take care of your end-users no matter what obstacles might present themselves along the way. Obviously, resiliency is essential to proper operations, and you must ensure you have the resiliency to handle all your service events at any time, in any environment or conditions, because your end-users expect it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a stiff test of organizational resiliency. Many organizations have done well, but an April survey of industry professionals by the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) suggests others have struggled. The data showed 47% of respondents’ organizations didn’t have contingency planning measures in place that were applicable to COVID-19, and 15% weren’t fully equipped to maintain operations as normal through the pandemic.
Already, we’re seeing how that translates to those organizations and their end-users. Here are some common themes:
- Organizations who use employees for their field service have had to scale back or even shut down those operations due to health concerns and travel restrictions. In that direct-hire model, each field engineer covers a certain geographic territory – yet TSIA reported on April 9 that 77% of organizations were not deploying service staff to any customer locations within the U.S. There might be a few back-up FEs in place, but there isn’t much redundancy built into that resource pool.
- In addition, TSIA reported on April 24 that 24% of organizations have experienced more FE absenteeism due to COVID-19. This has further strained existing resources; in short, organizations haven’t been able to handle all service tickets that their end-users have submitted.
- In addition to the decline in available resources, mission-critical and break-fix jobs have been prioritized over cases that have been deemed less essential or take more time to resolve. These factors have created a backlog of projects – all of which will need attention as end-users come out of the pandemic.
- In general, SLA compliance has suffered. When end-users submit service tickets, organizations are telling them they’ll get there when they can. And as backlogs get longer and prioritization filters get tighter, response delays increase.
While some service organizations have struggled to meet service demands through this pandemic, others have proven resilient and demonstrated a competitive advantage. Current end-users are likely to stick with them going forward, and end-users who aren’t satisfied with the service they’re getting from other vendors will increasingly move toward them in future buying cycles.
You must ensure you have the resiliency to handle all your service events, no matter how critical they are and what is happening in the world around you. Your end-users expect resiliency and are increasingly making it a bigger priority as they choose service vendors. It’s simple: adapt and lead the way forward, or watch others pass you by.
In our next post, we’ll give you tips on how to build a support infrastructure that maximizes resiliency. In the meantime, for more on Source’s service model, visit sourcesupport.com/services/24-7-support-services.
