ITC Service is a Newcastle-based provider of IT support. Their main values are Integrity, Trust, Communication and Service. We were able to help out with the communication part.
🎥 Highlight Reel
We were able to provide ITC with:
- Instant processing of negative reviews, allowing them to close the loop on dissatisfied clients;
- Integrations with HubSpot, Autotask, Connectwise, and Exclaimer;
- Automated responses to positive reviews, leading to more Google reviews and better SEO;
- Aesthetically pleasing surveys within ITC’s price range.
Most importantly, we gave them peace of mind when they needed it. Simplesat was quick to set up and easy to use. We keep communication transparent and do our best to respond to any problems that pop up. This is why growing companies like ITC can rely on us to ease their burdens – instead of adding another thing to worry about.
- Adam Preshous, Service Desk Manager at ITC
- Connor Thomas, Web, Marketing and Automation Developer at ITC
🌱 The Cost of Growth
ITC Service Ltd is a managed service provider in the UK, focused mainly on the Northeast.
They offer remote support and consultancy, anything under the IT umbrella. They have plans to expand their service – but first, they want to ensure that all their existing customers are receiving the best care possible.
Currently working with 400 customers, ITC has grown considerably over the past few years. They’ve recently expanded to a staff of around 45 team members.
In the chaos of rapid development, they noticed that the quality of service they were able to provide was declining.
There were too many things going on. It was becoming harder to maintain team cohesion and gauge what their customers were thinking.
“As with every company, you've got a certain level of quality, but as your company grows, you do start to lose that. Because of the knowledge being spread out among new members of staff, not following the same stars. We had account managers who were speaking to clients who weren't very happy. But it was the case of… why are they not very happy?”
Most of their work is service desk-based. From a service desk perspective, it was crucial to understand whether their clients were receiving the right kind of support – and if not, why not.
According to account manager reports, things were looking grim.
Old client grievances never got addressed because the client didn’t share them at the time. Resentment grew to the point where it wasn’t possible to do much about it.
“The account managers were stressed that the client wasn't happy. And yet the engineers didn't know about it at all. And the problem was that the client's unhappy, but they're talking about a ticket from six months ago, longer…If it was just brought up at the time, then we could have reacted. We could have jumped straight on it and we could have stopped that from being a problem.”
By the time the account manager hears about a problem, it’s too late to retain that client.
They needed clearer, more immediate responses to feedback. And they needed to encourage their clients to share feedback in the first place.
✨A Simple Solution
At the time, ITC was using Autotask, which has a native feedback management function. But, in Adam’s words: “it’s not nice, it’s not pretty”. Clients have no incentives to fill out those questionnaires.
So Adam’s team started looking around for alternatives. Crewhu and SmileBack both appealed to them, but the cost was too high considering ITC’s plans. They didn’t need the bells and whistles like customer recognition systems, they just wanted more and better feedback.
When their managing director came across Simplesat, everything clicked into place. We could offer everything they needed and we were in their price range. Maybe even more importantly, the setup process only took a couple of hours and Simplesat was ready to be used.
They were in the middle of some major changes and there were many moving parts to pay attention to. Simplesat offered some respite.
Adam says we helped a great deal with connecting to dissatisfied clients.
“At the minute, we're responding to kind of neutral feedback, negative feedback. The long-term goal is to also reach out for positive feedback as well. But we're just trying to make sure that we reach out and speak to clients before it goes to a point where they're very unhappy.”
👑 Improving ITC’s Profile and Visibility
While Adam was looking for a way to manage customer (dis)satisfaction, Connor and his marketing department needed a way to encourage their clients to leave Google reviews.
ITC had previously relied mainly on word-of-mouth, but it was time to go big. As an MSP, they couldn’t ignore the importance of their Google Business Profile.
More positive reviews mean more visibility, and they knew they could outpace bigger competitors if the reviews left an impression.
“I mean, it was funny. Adam was having all of these conversations about, we need to do this, we need to do that. And I was having all these conversations: we need to do this, we need to do that. But neither of us knew we were talking about the same thing, a lot of the time.”
For Connor, everything clicked into place when he read the email announcement about Simplesat’s HubSpot integration.
His team set up an auto-response to positive reviews. By directly encouraging happy clients to leave a review, their Google review count increased by 40 in a very short time.
The effects were immediate. They outpaced one of the bigger MSPs in England, and their local SEO improved considerably.
🤝 Simplesat isn’t just a product, it’s a collaboration
“I like the approach of pushing out the integration and almost beta-testing it on your users. I think that's probably the best way to go. But you know, knowing that even though it was basically a beta test, I jumped on the chat and you were straight on the problem, working it through and getting it resolved. So, now the integration's working great.”
“It's just signs of a good partnership. As opposed to just a product that's kinda, “there it is, we'll get to that when we can”. It shows you’re, well, caring about us.”
Individual care for their client’s needs is very important for ITC, just like it is for us. It’s how they stand out from other IT support options in the Northeast.
Simplesat helps them pay immediate attention to all their clients. They can stop any client resentment from snowballing, and they can also receive quality feedback that boosts their visibility.
🐾 Taking on One Problem at A Time
In conversation with Adam and Connor, were able to solve a minor frustration they had with questionnaire responses.
NPS surveys are a mystery to some of ITC’s clients. The international scoring standards aren’t widely known, and people tend to give low ratings even when they’re perfectly happy with the service they’re receiving. This muddies the waters and makes it harder to find Promoters.
By adjusting the color scheme of the ITC’s quarterly NPS survey, we hope to make the scale more intuitive for the respondents. 🚥
There will doubtless be other customizations and integrations that they’ll need in the future. We plan on supporting them every step of the way, and we wish them well on their journey.
