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The world of IT support has changed dramatically since “The IT guy” became commonplace in the late 90s. But while the methods and tools may have improved over the years, the life of an IT support technician today shares many similarities for anyone in the game when Y2K was the biggest concern in IT.
CONNECT has been serving the Okanagan since 1986, and we’ve seen a lot since the early days. Our IT support staff is made up of a great team of individuals with an impressive skill set to take the hassle out of IT for our clients. Many of our experts have been with us for several years, and we thought it would be fun to take you behind the scenes of what they do on a typical day at the office.
Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Jon Chubb (it’s his real name) has been part of the CONNECT team for three and a half years and has been doing IT support since 2009. On any given day, Jon may be working on workstation installations, dealing with software that’s not working or needs to be installed or upgraded. While other times, he may spend several days with server installs for a client’s office. Other days, he’ll be working on odds and ends of a migration project.
“It’s really a blend,” Chubb says. “There are many different businesses that require office and IT support, and we consider ourselves one of the top computer service companies. Often we’ll go in, we’ll make recommendations, we’ll ensure that all their technology and technology needs are looked after.”
Sometimes Chubb will go days without major client problems, but just when you think that this means a cruise to Easyville for Jon and the team, things never get boring. Because there will always be a bunch of small client issues that come for which quick fixes are required. And those do add up when you’re managing all of a company’s IT services.
According to Chubb, the technicians rely on the great work of dispatcher Tracey, who is in charge of managing what jobs need to go where and to whom. It’s like a well-oiled machine over here. Without the oil. And lots of machines.
These responsibilities probably aren’t all that different from the role of an IT support technician back in the day, but perhaps the most significant transformation in the job is how we do monthly monitoring for our Managed Services clients. Things for the support team are definitely becoming more automated, with lots of resource management software that helps make everything easier. “Once we take over an account we’ll not only manage the maintenance aspect of it, but we will constantly find different things to improve or upgrade,” says Chubb. “We just want to make the client’s life simpler going down the road and find new solutions for them.”
Having spent time working with other IT solutions companies, Chubb finds that what separates us from the competition is ownership of issues that may not fall within their wheelhouse. If the problem is with a printer, for instance, the other guys may tell you to call support with the manufacturer. The blame game is never fun, and we don’t play that way.
“With us, we have great relationships with vendors, and we are very resourceful,” he says. “We help the client understand how it needs to work or if we can offer assistance. We will generally be able to direct them to the right solution.”
For experts like Chubb, sometimes the right solution is so simple that the client still gets lost in the details.
Here’s a funny example. One customer he was working with (note: this is not a CONNECT client, but we’re still not naming names) requested a wireless router, and when Chubb plugged it into the wall before setting it up the client was furious that the router would need to be plugged in. Because hey — it’s supposed to be wireless, right?
Yup, that happened. And stories like this occur from time to time. But for our IT experts, it’s all part of the fun.
Our team of nine technical support experts has great camaraderie and spends time together after hours. When the door is closed, and they’re all huddling up, who knows what goes on? We asked Chubb repeatedly, and he wouldn’t spill; so, unfortunately, we can’t fill you in.
We can tell you however how proud we are of the job our IT team does each and every day, and we’re confident that when you CONNECT with us for any of your IT needs, you’ll be very well looked after.