In business today it’s difficult to separate yourself from the masses. What makes you different? What makes you better? What are your shortcomings? All of these are questions that businesses face and continue to face throughout the life of the company. As eTop has grown, these questions have been at the forefront of our attention. We aren’t the first IT company and up to this point, our services are not unique from those of other companies. So, how do we set ourselves above the industry standard?
To answer that question you have to ask what the industry standard is. A common truth of people who work in the IT industry is that they make great technicians but not always the best business owners. We believe that this is the space where eTop Technology will excel. In building this company we understand that its success depends on building a strong foundation. Over the last two years eTop has been growing by leaps and bounds in ways that can not necessarily be seen from the outside. Building a company is largely a matter of creating processes and structure for people to work within to always produce the best possible results for the client. This crucial period can make the difference between the success and failure of a company. The more people that work in a company the more important these processes become. The past several years have been a corner stone for eTop. Mostly through trial and error we have been laying the ground work that we hope will one day create an IT company that will meet the needs of most of the companies around us.
As part of our effort to build a great company we have found that the best way to understand what can make us better is to ask and listen. It seems like such a small thing on the surface but the more that we do it the more we have found it to be the missing element in most small businesses. Client satisfaction surveys are a small but crucial part of what makes a big difference in the way a company is structured. After all, who would know what the ideal IT company would look like other than your own clients? Most of our clients have gone through a few IT companies and by the time we get the opportunity to ask them what they like and what frustrates them they have a pretty clear idea.
When we started doing our client satisfaction surveys we were surprised to find that the answers we were looking for were really quite simple. At the top of the list of frustrations that our clients had, was lack in communication. Unsurprisingly, when your computer goes down and you can’t be productive, you want immediate help. When your trusted IT professional is on vacation or simply wont be available for a week, panic ensues. As a result of this we have made it a point to always have someone there to answer your call. Although we try to be as preemptive in our services as possible, it is important to have someone on staff at all times to put out the fires as they come up.
Usually you don’t want to have to call your IT professional, however, this doesn’t stop your computers from having issues. The core idea behind the services that our company offers is to prevent computers from having problems so that you don’t have to deal with the frustrations of down time. In one client satisfaction meeting we picked a small piece of the puzzle that has made our company better. In explaining how, with his already busy schedule, he didn’t have time to make the little IT issues a priority. This client said that he wished that someone would call on a weekly basis to check in and see how their network was running. Now, instead of waiting for calls, we make sure that someone from our company follows up with each of our clients on a weekly basis to make sure there are no problems to resolve.
You can’t put a price on being able to see your services from the point of view of your own customer. From listening to our customers we have been able to get an idea of what our company will look like in the years to come. Being able to avoid the mistakes of others is what we believe will make this biggest difference in making eTop successful. In our effort to set ourselves above and beyond the industry average, we have come to see that success is a team sport. With the help of our clients, it is our hope that eTop Technology will not only meet but exceed the expectations of our clients.
