IT Service Agreements: Know Your Clients

IT service agreements require knowing your ideal customer, keeping in regular contact with them and evaluating the service you provide. With this information you can alter your IT service agreements.

In addition to knowing your skills and being moderately qualified, keep an eye on the size of companies you want to target for IT service agreements. Going after 60 stations, 100 stations, or 150 stations is not the best place to start.

Start Small

Start with something that’s more comfortable and more approachable for your technical skill set. This will probably be someone in the 10 to 35 PC range with one or possibly 2 servers. They will not typically have wide area network connections. Most of their needs will be with Windows and Office and things you’re probably already comfortable with. Definitely start with some smaller small businesses before you progress onto larger ones.

IT Service Agreements Require Regular Communication

In terms of maintaining customer expectations, keeping up and keeping in contact with customers on a regular basis, whether it’s emails, phone calls, or dropping by is extremely important. If the service agreement is set up correctly, you and/or your technical staff should be at a client’s site at a minimum of once a month on-site.

In most cases, it’s going to be at least twice a month. Open lines of communication, staying in touch on a regular basis is extremely important if you want an extra quality control tool to make sure that you’re actually meeting and exceeding their expectations.

Use Surveys to Evaluate IT Service Agreements

Send a survey on a regular basis. Once a year is the minimum. Do this a couple months before you’re ready to give them their renewal. Feel free to adapt that to twice a year or quarterly if you want. You can even make it a little less formal but the key is to keep asking for feedback. Keep asking on how you can improve, how you can continue to deliver via your IT service agreements.

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