It’s true for any business that you’ll take work on that has been carried out previously by a competitor. In IT, you are often picking up where a previous IT company has left off and this can go very well, very badly or anything inbetween.
We are very lucky that it nearly always goes well and we think we know the reason for this. We are always upfront with whoever we are taking work from, we find honesty really is the best policy, especially where the setup is complicated by multiple servers and domains. In those instances it can be critical to get the ‘book’ of information the previous supplier has kept that lists all the technical details, including those critical passwords for the system.
I think there is a drive for clients to sometimes want to mistrust thier old supplier, often because relations have broken down somewhat. Even in those circumstances, it’s nearly always the best option to be open about what is happening. So we will always recommend transparency in making the transition.
The reason I mention this is because we have recently taken on a number of clients who had support deals with other IT companies. For us, the experience has been good, every time and that is a testament to the professionalism of those companies. Sure, they have lost some work they might not have wanted to see go, but they have worked to make sure everything goes smoothly so that we have been able to smoothly take over and get stuck in providing the support in our way.
And the point of this blog? Its just to say thank you to those companies who act in a way that brings credit to themselves and to all of us in the IT Support sector.