Always remember that.
This is a saying we use at Everon when building and running our managed services business, and it has served us very well.
There are two realities in the managed services industry:
- You are in the PEOPLE business
- Just about everything you do for your clients is done by people
Both of these realities seem obvious and just common sense but they are often forgotten or neglected so they’re important to address.
People are first, technology comes second.
Reality 1: You are in the PEOPLE business
This means that we expect our engineers to solve the people problems related to the service just as much as they are expected to solve the technology problems. We’ve found that when we’ve hired very tech gifted people they can solve tech problems easily but they don’t necessarily have the best people skills. Though they can solve the technology problems, they leave the clients feeling like the service was only so-so and that they weren’t really taken care of.
We’ve found that we have to hire people with great interpersonal skills first. The tech skills, though obviously important, are secondary. Our philosophy is that we can teach the tech skills but it’s much harder to teach the interpersonal skills. We look for people with the right personality, the right people skills and then we tech the tech skills.
Reality 2: Just about everything you do for your clients is done by people
Since the managed service industry started, there’s been lot of focus on tools that deliver these services. These tools are very important and have taken this industry far in terms of automating some things. However, the reality is that the far majority of services are still performed with some sort of people interaction. You must make sure that the people delivering these services are equipped to do so and are happy to provide those services.
There’s a saying that if you want to deliver great service, you have to have happy people delivering the service. Do they like taking care of customers? Do they like delivering the services? Do they feel like the company they work for cares about them and creates a positive environment for them? We at Everon put a lot of focus on having happy people that will deliver great services.
MRC
