Why a real person reads every message
Ticket queues and chatbots make sense for big companies. For a charity with three staff and a gala on Friday, they’re the wrong tool. Here’s how we work instead.
When something breaks at a small organization, it rarely breaks at a convenient time. The donation page goes down the week of the campaign. The executive director gets locked out of email an hour before the board meeting. The volunteer who “does the computers” is at the cottage.
In that moment, the last thing you need is an automated reply, a ticket number and a chatbot that keeps asking you to rephrase the question.
The problem with “enterprise-style” support for small organizations
Most IT support is designed for large companies with an internal IT team. That team speaks the language, files tickets in the right format and knows which system is which. The provider’s job is to work through a queue.
Small organizations don’t have that person. You’re usually explaining the problem and trying to work out what the problem even is. A queue of anonymous technicians, each seeing your organization for the first time, turns a 15-minute fix into a week of back-and-forth.
How we work instead
A person reads it. Every message that reaches us, by email or through the website, is read by someone on our team. Not a bot, and not an overseas call centre.
You deal with people who know you. If you work with us regularly, you’ll usually hear from the same person, someone who knows your setup, your people and your history.
You know the cost first. For anything beyond a quick fix, you get a written quote before we start. If a job turns out bigger than expected, we stop and ask.
We write things down. Every change goes into your organization’s notes: what we did, why, and what it means for you. If you ever leave us, the notes go with you.
We speak plain language. You should be able to explain what we did to your board without a glossary. If you can’t, we haven’t explained it properly.
We’re Canadian. We bill in Canadian dollars, know the difference between Law 25 and CASL, and can work with you in English or French.
Does this cost more?
Usually not. Most problems at small organizations are simple once someone who understands your setup looks at them. A person who already knows your systems fixes things faster, which keeps the hours, and the invoices, down.
If that sounds like the IT help you’ve been missing, send us a message. A real person will read it.