My name is Damon Richards. I was born and raised in Indianapolis. I attended Indianapolis Public Schools then went to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute. I met my wife of 25 years while in Terre Haute. Along the way, I've lived briefly in San Antonio and Los Angeles before returning home to Indianapolis where Susie and I chose to raise our three children.

After having spent nearly five years in the Air Force and another three at Indiana Bell Telephone Company, I struck out on my own with a life-long friend to start Port-to-Port Consulting. We were pretty naive when we started, but we had the idea that technology was just as important to small organizations as it was to big ones. We had seen the kind of resources and knowledge that big organizations threw at technology. We had also seen what smaller organizations had to accept as technical expertise. Port-to-Port's goal was, and still is, to bring the power of technology to the smaller organizations so they can be as successful as they choose to be. We provide focus, comfort, and support through tactical and strategic implementation of your computer network.

Along the way we've learned more about business, and strive to keep up with the pace of technology. We developed a delivery model that we call Pertingo. Through Pertingo, we are impacting the work day of more than 1,000 people in a positive way. This blog will chronicle the things we've learned that make us believe that Pertingo is the way IT support ought to be delivered.

I invite you to join the discussion. Tell us about your successes and disasters in business computer support. We'll share some of our successes and failures as well.

There are some things I do as a part of my job as an Indianapolis Computer Consultant that I would do anyway. Having the business computer support job just makes it easier to justify in the same way that it's easier to play in a toy store if you have a little kid with you.

I have stood in line twice now to purchase an iPhone. The first time, last June, it was just to see if the device was even remotely close to all of its hype. It was very close. I stood in line the second time because Apple had fixed the biggest flaw with the first version (and I had dropped the original one in the water a couple of weeks earlier). I've written before about what a beautiful device the iPhone is, but here's the part that will survive the iPhone. The primary interface to the iPhone is your finger! That's right: no keyboard, no mouse, no stylus. More precisely, the primary interface is your fingers. The screen is multi-touch capable. It understands if you use two fingers.

Apple's laptop touchpads are multi-touch. Fujitsu uses them too, but calls them gesture enabled. Microsoft is putting multi-touch capability in the next version of Windows, as well as on their very expensive Surface table. This multi-touch screen is one of several new interfaces being applied in computing. You may have seen the Lenovo commercial where the man's family doesn't recognize his face but his computer does. Facial recognition could improve to the point that your expressions work as input. Even more incredible is the Emotiv Systems device that uses electrodes on your head to directly interpret your brain waves. This device will sell for $300 or less in the near future.

Of course there's also the one that I keep saying is right around the corner: good old fashioned talking. Computers are very good at converting our spoken words into text, but they are still pretty lousy at understanding what our words mean. Recall the difficulty you had learning about conjugating verbs and diagramming sentences. Now listen to the talk going on around you. No one is really following those rules! We don't have any problem interpreting what people mean, but your computer could be driven nuts by things as simple as the affirmative “Uh huh” used instead of "yes."

This is an example of the kinds of extras that a business owner gets when using Pertingo computer consulting services.

In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld earned the Foot in Mouth Award for answering a press conference question with his famous, “as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.” As confusing as that sounds, it is the treacherous unknown unknowns that make the job of computer network consulting in Indianapolis exciting. I’m often told by prospects that they have everything they need from their small business computer consultant only to discover a few questions later that they are only happy because they don’t know what they’re missing.

Another computer outsourcing provider passed on a story about a business computer support customer he had a few years ago. She was visiting the office and noticed that every printer had a bottle of white out next to it. The customer explained that their word processor automatically printed the page number on the first page of each document. They used the white-out to cover it, then copied the first page before sending the document. When the consultant showed them quickly how to change the setting, they exclaimed that the solution would save them several minutes per document, not to mention paper and white-out. They hadn’t asked before because they thought the cost to have it changed would be burdensome.

How many White-Out Cures are there in your office just waiting for a good computer help desk tech to get rid of them for you? The reason that we charge a fixed fee rather than an hourly rate is so you can ask those questions without regard to the burden they might be.

I attended the Dealmaker Media Under the Radar conference yesterday. This is a speed dating style conference where companies that are doing new things in Information Technology get six minutes to pitch their company before a room full of potential investors and business partners. Chip Heath, co-author of "Made to Stick," did a brief presentation on the secret to pitching in a short time. It's amazing how much one can present in only a minute. Unfortunately, one cannot pitch everything in one minute. Heath's advice: Pitch the single most important thing and leave the audience with questions that will lead to future conversations.

In thinking about that advice, I considered what is the single most important thing that a good business computer support company should do for its customers. My conclusion surprised me. Your computer network consulting company should make you more money by increasing your revenue. I can list a dozen things that your IT support service provider should do, but the single defining element is that we, like all of your other employees, should work to make your business more profitable. If we aren't doing that, then we aren't working hard enough.

Given that as the main objective changes the way that my Indianapolis computer consulting company views its relationship with customers. Clearly keeping the computer network running is important, but it doesn't begin to impact profitability. The place where we add value is by taking our knowledge of technology and combining it with your understanding of your business and finding the sweet spot where they fit together. That's why we're always asking questions that don't seem to directly apply to the activities of your computer system. We're looking for those places of most potential. Share your goals and objectives with us so we can do our part to make you more successful.

Computer network services are among the most rapidly changing elements of global business. Yet it is amazing how few really big new ideas come to the industry each year. Sure, processors get faster and memory gets cheaper, but that just means that we have bigger computers waiting for us to figure out what we’re going to type next. Instead of working on the next big thing, most companies in the Information Technology sector watch to see what people are clamoring to have, then try to build an offering that is marginally better than the market leader. Good recent examples are the many new touch screen phones that have appeared since the introduction of the Apple iPhone or the explosion of social networking sites after the sale of MySpace and valuation of Facebook.

Linus Pauling said, “Te best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.” Today’s corporate leaders fail to follow anything like this advice. Their motto seems more along the lines of, “Make something that looks like what everyone is buying so we can get a share of this hot market too.” The reason I bought an iPhone was because Apple had broken the mold of what a smart phone was supposed to look like. I hoped that its success would lead to a complete re-thinking of what people want in a phone. Instead it led to a plethora of me-too imitations. And how many online social networks can one man belong to? I’ve been invited to join at least one new one each week for the past several months. I’ve even been offered a couple of opportunities to create my own for my Indianapolis computer consulting customers. Fear not, there will be no Pertingo social network on my watch.

So, here are some ideas I’d like to suggest for the ready to take a risk company that wants to impact business computer support:

• Brainstorm new ways to interface with the computer. Scrap the keyboard/mouse paradigm altogether and start from scratch.


• Develop a new authentication method that doesn’t depend on our ability to create cryptic passwords that we can’t remember and have to change so frequently that it wouldn’t matter if we could remember.


• Come up with a better way to keep viruses and other malware from wrecking the good mood of office workers.


• Create a standard that allows email authentication so we can stop losing good mail and receiving bogus offers to enhance our lives or bodies.

I can take any group of people and brainstorm an enormous list of ideas under any of these topics. Surely those with specific expertise in these areas can do something better than they’ve done thus far.

One of the many things I love about my job as an Indianapolis computer consultant is that it provides me with ample opportunities to let out the geek in me. In most instances, I'm not extremely enamored with how cool a new item is. I'm more interested in how it can help me or my small business computer support customers do our jobs better. Every now and then, especially in the portable device market, I will buy something that I know won't do what I need it to do just as a way of casting my vote for the innovative idea.

The original iPhone was one of those purchases. I was fairly confident that it wouldn't work well enough for me to use it or recommend it to my customers. However, I was sure that it was an attempt at something completely different than other smart phone manufacturers were doing. It turns out I was right on both counts. My assumption was that the traditional cell phone manufacturers would look at the iPhone and say, "Why didn't we think of that!" They did. Look at the number of phones on the market now that are iPhone impersonators. Then Apple came along with their new version, the iPhone 3G, and knocked the imposters out of the way.

In 15 months, Apple has sold ten million iPhones. They sold more last quarter than industry leader RIM sold Blackberrys. I'm telling my computer consulting customers to consider the iPhone for their mobile device. Now let the recommendation lead you to believe I'm a Mac zealot or a Windows basher. The best thing Apple did with the new iPhone was to license the Microsoft activesync software so it can talk to Exchange servers. I have a list of things that would make the phone better that has reached 10 items, but that's far shorter than the list I have for every other smart phone I've tried.

As a species, we don’t care much for change. Even in an ever-changing industry like computer network consulting, I’m often amazed at how resistant to change my peers are. It even sneaks into the thinking of our company from time to time. I overheard a couple of my staff members in a discussion recently. One said to the other, “If you don’t like change, you picked the wrong place to work.”

 

I found that to be refreshing. One of the most important ways in which we add value to our Indianapolis computer services customers is to stay aware of changes that might impact their businesses. Most of the changes that occur in computer outsourcing won’t be important to any individual business, but every change makes a difference to some business. We are responsible for bringing those pertinent changes to the attention of our computer network consulting clients so they can decide how to respond to the change. A significant side effect of this is that our organization is constantly in a state of flux. As Stephen Haeckel said, “Innovation is disruptive and a natural enemy of efficiency, stability, and predictability.” Port-to-Port Consulting is an interesting place to work.

 

In another conversation on which I eavesdropped, I heard this statement: “We have to get it together before the next guy gets here.” I laughed out loud in response. The truth is, we have it together. It doesn’t often look like it because we’re constantly changing, which means it doesn’t stay together very long before something changes. This constant churn is most obvious at the interface between our Help Desk and our computer outsourcing customers. As we make changes to keep up with technology and best practices, our customers are sometimes confronted with a different way of doing things. We work to make a smooth transition if we can. We redirect the bulk of the change to us internally. Still, we know that the best fit customers for Port-to-Port are the ones who can adjust to change.

In the Middle Age Vikings lived and literally died by the sea. After death, wealthier Vikings were placed in ships filled with food, jewels, weapons, food and even sometimes servants or animals for their comfort in the afterlife. The boats were interred in the ground, set alight or sent out to sea. This seems to be the way many small business owners make their computer network decisions. They believe that they should have the latest and greatest so they can impress others with their state-of-the-art technology. I frequently meet with business owners in the Indianapolis area who have rooms full of computer equipment. They brag about the manufacturers of the equipment the way teenagers talk about their clothes designers.

The goal of any business computer purchase decision should be to help the business generate more revenue or realize more profit. Anything else means you’re stockpiling your ship for your afterlife journey to Valhalla. My computer network consulting customers are always telling me that I’m the most “no saying” sales guy they’ve ever met. I point out that I’m not saying no to the purchase. I’m just pressing them to understand their true motivation in making the purchase.

Now I’m no Luddite. I love to have neat baubles to play with. But I don’t pretend when I buy a Samsung micro-PC that it’s going to make money for my company. I buy it because I want to play with it. Sometimes that playing leads to some useful business benefits that I can share with my customers. The PDA was a great example. The first Palm Pilot I purchased was the fifth device I had owned. I saw a real benefit even though the products coming to market weren’t quite there. Smartphones are another, more recent example.

This is one of the intangible benefits that a good computer outsourcing company provides. You have enough to keep up with changes in your specific industry. Let us keep up with the changes in ours that will affect yours. Stock your ship with more impressive things than failed technology.

 

Dan and Chip Heath write in the October issue of Fast Company magazine that companies employ the equivalent of the population of Kansas to field our complaint calls but about a canoe full to hear our compliments. They go on to lament about how difficult companies make it for us to say thank you. I believe they’ve confused cause and effect. If there were more of us trying to say thanks, more people would be employed to take those calls. Saying thank you has become an indication of weakness in our society. Having someone thank you is akin to them calling you a wuss. More often than not when you say thank you to someone, the response is “thank you.” What happened to “You’re welcome”?
 
In my computer network consulting business, I love to hear from customers who are happy. I always share their thanks with my staff. Although we get far more complaints than compliments, we put just as much effort into acknowledging those who send their thanks as we do improving upon the weaknesses described by those who complain. Our computer help desk staff spends every day fielding problems from people who are mad. They usually are mad at the situation, but it’s hard to maintain that rational view when you’re the person getting yelled at.

Here’s my suggestion to test the cause and effect of call center staffing: For each complaint that you lodge in the future, put just as much effort into a thank you. Let’s see if we can’t change the workforce in Kansas.

Web 2.0. What things came to your mind when you read that phrase? Did you think of Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? Cloud Computing? Crowdsourcing? Second Life maybe?

I’ll bet you didn’t think, “New avenues for marketing.” That’s what people in the online marketing world want you to think. In the small business market where we provide business computer support, these are not generally good ideas for marketing dollars. While you certainly should have a website that is dynamic to some degree by now, you aren’t ready to dump significant dollars into creating your own social network for your customers, even if they are the hip, twenty-somethings that hang out on Facebook and Twitter. They don’t hang out in these online joints to hear about your latest special.

Millions of dollars have been spent creating spaces in Second Life. Thousands have been spent creating sophisticated pages in MySpace? Hundreds have been spent establishing Twitter feeds. Almost all of it has been wasted because people aren’t going online so you can market to them. We’re all content for the free services we use on the Internet to pay the way by tacking an advertisement or two (or twelve) on the pages that we see. We’d clearly rather that than pay for these indispensable services, right? However, we draw the line at the intrusion of advertisers into our activity. In fact, new services are quite often created when a popular service starts pandering to advertisers instead of keeping its user base in mind.

If you’re ready to increase your online advertising budget, start with these:

1. Update your web site.
1. Add some interaction.
2. Create changing content.
3. Add links to other sites.
4. Ask other sites to link to you.
2. Start blogging. Regular blog posts about your business will enhance your search success.
3. Create personal accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networking sites.
4. Create an electronic newsletter using a professional broadcast email company.
5. Update your web site again. You can never do this enough.

One of the hot new topics in computer network consulting is virtualization. This is the process of running multiple “instances” of a computer on a single piece of hardware. It’s a step toward taking advantage of the unused power of our computers, particularly servers. The reality is that most computer spend most of their time waiting for something to do. If we use that time to run another function, we can avoid buying more hardware that will also spend its time waiting for something to do. Why not just run the additional applications and services on the current server? Well, you know how some programs don’t like to run together on a machine? You can avoid that problem if they run in separate machine instances.

This is a bigger benefit for larger organizations that have rooms full of servers. By virtualizing the servers, more can be done on the same hardware. The hardware reduction leads to real savings in power, air conditioning, and floor space. In a small business, this is less of an advantage since they generally run a single server.

Once server virtualization became hot, it was only a matter of time until someone thought about using it for desktop applications as well. This is the next step toward centralized computing again. Terminal services and remote control have been gaining in popularity as a way to connect from external locations. Virtualization is another option for making that happen.

For the small businesses for whom we provide computer support, we’ve found that the savings from moving to virtualization is small compared to the inconvenience it provides for the staff. With the exception of remote access, it makes more sense to use your computer as a computer and avoid the added complexity of virtualization. Of course, this is subject to change as the features improve.

One of the things my Indianapolis computer services company tries to do with our small business customers is to help them maximize the benefits of having us provide their IT support services. We started out being called computer consultants, then we were called Information Technology consultants, then Network Services consultants. None of the old monickers goes away as new ones appear so now we're called all kinds of things. The one that didn't stick was the one I thought was most descriptive: Information Management consultants.
It makes me think of the old adage: "A man doesn't buy a shovel to get a tool. He buys a shovel to get hole." Likewise, you don't buy a computer to own a device. You buy a computer to manage your information.

In his book, On Dialogue, Robert Grudin divides information into two sections: forms of information that people consciously desire, and forms of information that are vital whether people desire them or not. We bring both to the attention of our computer network consulting customers.

Consciously Desired

• We want to know what will bring us advantage and, conversely, what holds danger for us;
• We want access to sources of pleasure and excitement;
• We want genuine, heart-to-heart communication, with confidentiality, and the ability to form networks with the likeminded or similarly distressed;
• We want to learn and to empower ourselves.

Undesired But Necessary

• We need to know when we are making mistakes or maintaining self-destructive attitudes or misguiding our young;
• We need to know about emergent forces in history that may necessitate our making some investment or sacrifice;
• We need to know about ourselves and the cultural and psychological forces that influence us;
• We need to review and sometimes to amend the very arts by which we analyze and communicate.

A story about United Airlines’ 2002 bankruptcy emerged on the Internet on September 8, 2008, looking like a new story. UAL’s stock dropped 76 percent that day before trading was temporarily halted. Three days later, the stock had climbed back to $10.50. This demonstrates the amazing power of the Internet on real things in the world, and the incredible amount of influence an Internet posting can have.

What happened was that a Google search bot found mention of the bankruptcy on a Florida Sun-Sentinel page that had a date of September 7, 2008. The story was listed in a summary called “Popular Stories: Business.” If you or I had come across that page, we would immediately have known that it referenced the 2002 bankruptcy, but Google’s bot isn’t as smart as you or me. It dutifully summarized the story with the date it found on the page. Next, the story ran on the Google News service, where it was picked up by Income Security Advisors and posted to the Bloomberg service. From there, more people searching for details made the story more popular, which moved it higher in search results which led to more people seeing it. And UAL lost 76 percent of its value.

Lots of little things went wrong to make this happen. Any one of them could have been prevented by having a human involved. Unfortunately, there is too much information that we deem important, but usually not critical, to be able to afford a human watch it. Processes get automated and computers sometimes make mistakes because they have no judgment. Similar errors happen every day in the routine monitoring of a small business’s computer system.

At our Indianapolis computer consulting company, we use automated tools to monitor many routine functions of our small business customers’ computer networks. We rely on these tools to be “smart” enough to alert us when we need to turn some human attention to something. It doesn’t always happen the way we plan, so sometimes we miss something. We can usually resolve the problem without causing a 76 percent loss in value. When one of our automated processes goes awry, we tighten up that process to avoid that happening again. We have plenty of new mistakes available to us. Why repeat an old one?

A recent article on small business computer security spending identified that most organizations are spending the money in the wrong places. Once your computer network services provider has  installed a good firewall and decent anti-virus software, you’ve done the spending required to keep the casual hacker (a disappearing breed) from getting into your network. As long as your network support team keeps them current and properly configured, you’ve covered the external security threat. Your concern should next turn to internal data security.

I mention that the casual hacker is a disappearing breed because hacking has become professionalized. Today’s hacker is likely a part of a sophisticated syndicate. Her goal is to get control of your computing resources. These groups use your disk space, your Internet bandwidth, and your processing power to conduct all manner of activities. They really aren’t interested in your data at all. The people who might be interested in your data are the people who know what data you have.

In the 2003 movie, “The Recruit,” new CIA agent Layla Moore sneaks data out of the agency on a USB drive hidden in the bottom of a travel mug. In 2003, these devices held about 256 Mb of data. Today you can buy one that holds 32 Gb. That’s 128 times as much – enough to put all of your customer database on it along with a few hundred mp3 files and photos. Additionally, computer vendors tend to add CD or DVD burners as a standard on new machines, making it possible to burn data directly to these devices as well. How often do you consider whether your people need these capabilities to perform their jobs?

My goal here isn’t to create panic or paranoia, but to say that spending on more stuff to prevent outsiders from stealing your data should take a back seat to protecting your data from the insiders who might be interested in stealing it.

The title of that old Teddy Pendergrass song is "When Somebody Loves You Back." That's the essence of a good computer consulting relationship. Love isn't often used in business relationships, but I think it should be. The difference is that these relationships must be 50/50 loves. It isn't enough that you appreciate the effort of your IT support services. They (we) have to appreciate the opportunity you give us to work with you and your staff toward achieving your goals...your dreams for your organization.

My Indianapolis computer consulting company recognizes the incredible trust our customers place in us when they let us manage their critical network support. We know that we have to return the trust and demonstrate our love for them if we hope to be successful in doing what we do. And we have bad days too. That’s why it needs to be a 50/50 love. On occasion you will be the fifth or fiftieth person to ask the same question of us. We have to care enough to realize that it’s the first time you’ve asked it that day.

All of us take tremendous pride in the successes of our customers, personally and professionally. We cheer when we hear that M.D. Wessler is one of the 15 best places to work. We celebrate when we hear that Rebecca Baer has been recognized as a distinguished Graduate of the Last Decade at Ball State. We love being a part of the incredibly diverse group of organizations who allow us to participate in their daily operations through their business computer support.
We do love our customers, and we believe that they love us too.

I recently had a meeting with a customer in which we agreed to part ways after a short relationship. It was a lot like breaking off a new relationship of any kind: Regrets for not having made it work; Sadness that it didn’t work; Guilt for not having tried harder. In the end, we parted because, as the old Teddy Pendergrass song says, we didn’t have a fifty-fifty love.

One of the most difficult things for outsourced computer support people is to be so mistreated by our customers. We understand that technology inherently brings with it some confusion and frustration. We get that most of the emotion isn’t about us even though it is often directed at us. But a good customer will treat us with the same respect and decorum that he gives to his staff and co-workers. After all, we’re a part of the staff. I have customers for whom I have worked longer than anyone else on their staff.

Your small business computer support provider may be one of the hardest working members of your staff because she’s only at work when there is work for her to do. The problem is often that the only time your computer help desk staff comes to mind is when you have a computer support issue. You begin to associate their appearance with trouble even though they are actually there to fix it.

Make yourself more conscious of the way you treat the people who keep your computer network running. Try to have a fifty-fifty love.

There are professions where creativity is not usually considered an asset. Accounting is one of the first to come to mind. I want an accountant who understands the intricacies of tax law. I want him to be versed in the debit and credit practices required to keep track of my meager fortune. I don’t particularly want him coming up with creative ways to keep my books. Creative accountants bring to mind companies like Enron.

What about IT support companies? Should you expect your computer outsourcing provider to be creative? Certainly your computer consulting services company should be more creative than your accountant. I argue that your business computer support company should be the most creative partners of your business with the possible exception of your marketing firm. While many small business owners want to believe they can buy computers from the pimple-faced kid at Best Buy and keep them for a decade without concern, you all know the reality is that technology changes more rapidly than congressmen. A creative computer network consulting company will be able to see how new technology can impact your business and make you more money. In the end, my Indianapolis computer consulting company is useless if we don’t have a positive impact on our customers’ revenue during the year. I’m not talking about cost savings. I mean real new money coming in the door. The best way to do that is for us to leverage new (and existing) technology in creative ways to benefit our clients’ operations.

How could you have known a decade ago how Electronic Mail (that’s how it was written then) was going to impact your business? How are you expected to know what impact blogging, social networking, smart phones, micro-PCs, Windows Vista, Google Chrome, WiMax, and all the other emerging technologies are going to change your business? Your creative computer tech support company should already have some ideas. I do!

As the battle to prevent spam raged in the past decade, vendors developed many schemes for managing your inbox. The one we preferred for our small business computer consulting customers was the method referred to as whitelisting. The beauty of whitelisting is that only the email addresses that you say are OK get to drop mail in your inbox. The biggest hassle to this approach was that you had to know, in advance, from whom you might want to receive email. Even this got tackled by a few vendors who sent a challenge email in response to the first message from a new address. When companies with competing solutions started calling these challenges spam, the system started to fall apart again.

Today, the war against spam is about as effective as the war on drugs. Lots of talk. Lots of money being spent. Problem growing ever larger. But many of those same vendors who are collecting our spam prevention dollars are now turning to the whitelist approach that they derided for preventing spam and suggesting it as a useful way to keep malware (all those misguided software applications intended to do harm) from running on your computer. They want your network administrator to create a list of all the programs that are approved to run on your PC. Any other that you try to run, or that tries to run itself, will be denied. They figure this is easier than the current approach of trying to develop a blacklist of programs that should not be allowed to run. In order for this to work successfully, someone will have to spend a great deal of time generating and maintaining this whitelist. Right now there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of software applications on the machines on the typical office network. Good luck!

Hopefully this switch to whitelisting will be a quickly passing fad – an attempt to offer something different to the marketplace. Otherwise, I’m afraid our war on malware will turn into a battle of slogans. Just say No.

1. You should consider hosted applications.
2. You should consider online backup.
3. More of your marketing budget should go toward online marketing.
4. Your hard drive has more impact on your computer’s speed than your processor.
5. Your video card has more impact on your computer’s speed than your processor.
6. Social Networking is going to be as important as email to your business at some point.
7. It is possible, but not yet practical, to operate your computer network without Microsoft products.
8. Your mobile phone should be considered a part of your computer network (and you should be paying for support).
9. Spam is going to continue to make email more difficult to count on until the industry takes the challenge seriously instead of looking it as an opportunity to make more money.
10. While it doesn’t seem like it, your computer network is getting more difficult to maintain because it is getting more complicated.

I'm attending the Ingram Micro SMB Alliance conference in Chicago this week. The organizers asked me to do a presentation on customer service for my peers in the computer consulting business. I talked about the importance of customer service in delivering business computer support. You would have thought I had discovered a new element from the response I received. I'm always amazed at how little we do to make our customers feel good about having decided to use us for their network support.

It's not that we don't want to provide good customer service. It's that most of us have never been taught how to do it. We know what it looks like when we receive it, but it's harder to know how to give it. We've been doing more training in customer service so that we can support our Indianapolis small business customers better. From the training, I've found that most people actually want to give good customer service. They just need to be told how, and it needs to be important in the overall structure and culture of the business.

Today, we'll hear from people who study the evolution of the computer support industry. They'll tell us what we should be doing next to keep our businesses on the front edge of computer support. I don't imagine a single one of them will suggest that we try to be nicer to our customers.