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Archives for March 2022

Understanding Service Level Agreements (SLA)

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Service Level Agreement between software company and customers
SLAs are a contract between customers and service providers.

Have you ever ordered from Amazon and been given the option of Amazon Prime shipping. This feature guarantees the speed of product delivery from Amazon to the customer. This is a prime (pun intended) example of a Customer Based Service Level Agreement, promising to uphold their delivery time quote.

However, if the company does not deliver at the intended time leaving the customer unsatisfied with their services, there may be a predetermined compensation or other offers if the mistake was due to internal efforts. This ensures that customers are more likely to continue using their company’s services in the case of an error.

What is an SLA

A Service Level Agreement is essentially a contract between the customer and business that defines the standard of the service provided. SLA’s ensure customer satisfaction as well as company success/reputability. It may outline the quality, physical properties, and timely nature of the product. SLA’s can be utilized by companies internally or externally:

  • Customer based SLA: This is a service level agreement between your company and an individual customer or a specific group of customers.  
  • Multi-level SLA: is a customized agreement split into different levels designed to fit the specific needs of multiple customers seeking the same services.
  • Internal SLA: involves an agreement among an organization and its internal employees service standard rather than customers. 

SLA’s in the Tech World

 In the Information Technology (IT) world SLA’s may be used to guarantee the quality, availability, and timeliness of the software provided to the customer. Although SLA’s can be used between the customer and company, they may also be used internally within a company or combined on multi-levels. Further we will discuss the different ways in which SLA’s can be utilized in your IT business:

When writing an SLA agreement it is important to incorporate all inclusions and exemptions in the contract. This ensures that each counterpart is working under the same impression, minimizing the risk of mis-communication as the contract provides clear expectations. However, if an issue arises, individuals may refer back to the contract to determine further action.

1. Customer based SLA

In a customer based SLA, the customer and service provider negotiate specific expectations of the services that will be provided. This type of service level agreement can vary from customer to customer accommodating to their individual needs. For example, a customer based SLA at a software company may define the specific amount of time required to respond and resolve any customer inquiries.

2. Multi-level SLA

Multi-level SLA’s are used for different customer groups with varying needs where each group is provided with the same level of service at different quantities. This type of SLA can be divided into different tiers including corporate level, customer level, service level, and issue based.  This allows customers to select the proper service plan based on their requirements. For example, an IT company providing a software service plan may have various groups of customers ranging in size. This means the company is providing the same software at different price points relative to the number of users at each company. SLA contracts may be vary based on the value of the customer.

3. Internal SLA

Internal SLA’s can be used within companies for purposes such as connecting teams to work cohesively towards improving company success. For example, this may be acquired by creating a contract agreement between the IT Department leaders and the internal customers they serve. Metrics that can be pre-defined are first time response once the service request has been submitted and total time to resolve the issue. These key performance indicators (KPI’s) are typically measured over a period of time and presented as a average. This ensures each counterpart is responsible for a specific service standard within the internal functions of the company. 

Important Factors to Include in an SLA

SLA’s must incorporate many different aspects into the agreement including a detailed description, exemptions, availability standard, service standard, penalties, and data handling method. It is important to the contracts viability to properly outline each, ensuring both parties hold up their end of the agreement.

 

Improving Customer Service

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How to keep customers coming back
Improve customer service because customers are everything for growing your business.

Consistently improving customer service skills is important for the whole team to succeed and ensure customers keep coming back. Customers are the core of every business and should always be the number one priority. If your company is selling a product or service this is the reason your business is growing. A single poor experience with a customer service representative can result in a lost customer forever. This is why keeping customers satisfied is so important for bringing in more business. Here are five strategies that will help you improve your customer service!

1. Know your Products and Services

To help the customer, your team members must have a deep knowledge of how your products and services work. Customers may come to you with all types of questions so it’s important your team members can answer these questions effectively. Ultimately your customers rely on you for your knowledge of your product and how quickly you can resolve their issues. 

2. Be Goal Oriented 

Setting a goal to improve customer satisfaction puts your team’s focus on providing consistent customer service experience. To be goal oriented focuses attention on desired outcomes and provides team members with motivation to accomplish tasks. In order to meet goals, employees must demonstrate certain skills such as effective time management, planning, and organization. 

3. Efficient Response Time

When customers have to wait lengthy periods for a response from the support team they can get agitated very quickly and left unsatisfied with your company. In turn they might seek out your competition. By providing customers with prompt responses they are much more likely to continue using your products and recommend your company to their peers.

4. Be Personable

Personalized interactions greatly improve customer service and let customers know that your company cares about them and their problems. When interacting with customers it’s important to have more meaningful conversations rather than your typical automated responses. This will help make their overall experience with your company more enjoyable. 

5. Be Engaging 

The simplest way to improve your customer service is to ask your customer for their feedback. Encourage your customers to share their experiences and pain points. This ensures that your customers feel valued and that their opinions are acknowledged.

Remote Project Management

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Managing projects remotely requires effective communication, collaboration, organization and dedication.


During the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic many businesses have turned to working remotely. You need the right remote project management software to ensure that your remote team has a central space to communicate, collaborate, and organize work-related data.

Let’s look at each of these further…

Communication

Communication is the key to successfully managing projects remotely. To ensure the success of any project, the team leader takes on the responsibility of ensuring remote team members have the tools and resources they need to be efficient and productive while minimizing the risks of any miscommunication. When communicating online with your team, make sure you are as specific as possible about the project objectives, goals, and expectations.

Organization

When it comes to remote project management, keeping the work clearly organized and visible is crucial to staying on track. As a project manager it’s important that everything is organized from managing documents, project plans, and project status updates ensuring team members are on task. In order to remotely manage tasks, you need to have complete project access via your browser from anywhere. 

Collaboration 

Remote team collaboration refers to the ability to engage with team members in different places. Employees who have the same goal may collaborate more effectively to reach it. The remote project manager is responsible for breaking down projects into smaller tasks, setting milestones, assigning responsibilities, and tracking progress online. Effective collaboration and setting clear expectations will increase overall productivity. 

Dedication

A dedicated project manager plays a vital role improving overall team performance and motivation. Setting aside a dedicated time for the team to review and report on the project while it’s still fresh in everyone’s mind is key. This will ensure that all updates are documented and can be used to update the project sponsors, customers, and project team for effective status updates. You can refer to this data to optimize your processes for your next project so you can continuously improve and scale your project management skills for best practices.

What does it take to be an IT Manager?

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A further look into an IT managers daily responsibilities 

Information technology managers (IT managers) are tasked every day with managing multiple functions of a business. Businesses are becoming more reliant on IT managers as technology continues to increase its role in modern businesses. IT managers are essential to a successful organization through their experience and expertise in the field. There are multiple skills important to living up to the roles and responsibilities of being an IT manager. Here are a few of the many responsibilities of an IT manager:

Project Management and Planning

Change is inevitable as businesses grow with the times. It is important for organizations to stay on top of change and adjust their resources accordingly. IT managers must modernize existing systems to optimize company productivity. This may include a software that functions to effectively distribute tasks, organize the workforce, determine costs, and set timeframes. All are essential functions to project management and planning which regularly cost an IT manager valuable time. 

Leading IT Staff

IT managers are responsible for leading a team of employees. This includes scheduling, assigning tasks, implementing project milestones, and more to help employees reach their fullest potential. It is important for employees to remain engaged and feel trusted within the workplace. IT managers must operate with an open communication network allowing employees to come to them with questions or concerns.

Meeting Client and Business’ Needs

IT managers are tasked with the responsibility of meeting customer and business needs using online functions. This means when a customer is experiencing issues with usability the IT manager must fix the problem without changing the original function of that feature. As well, IT managers must create new features when businesses are looking to update their websites or applications. This again must be done in a manner that does not disrupt the original functions and current customers experience. Balancing these two aspects are part of the everyday job of an IT manager.

Creating and Refining Technology Systems

IT managers are important to maintaining a functional and secure computerized system. When problems arise within the computer system the IT leader is tasked with finding technical solutions. IT managers need extensive knowledge in their field as well as on the computer system in place. 

Many IT managers have already adopted a computerized system or additional software to reduce the stress of their multiple responsibilities. This will help you with the day-to -day organization of resources, tasks, scheduling, and more. Taking this step allows you to operate efficiently in your integral role within the company.

Learn how you can organize your IT department.

 

Tips for Managing IT Team Effectively

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How to utilize your team effectively
Your team can either lead the company to success, or failure, which is why you need to utilize them as best as you can.

Teamwork is essential for creating the foundation of a high-performing business. Good team ethic leads to the success and smooth operations of your company. By identifying employees’ skill sets and assigning tasks that are well suited to their abilities helps to improve team efficiency. An effective team includes skills such as good problem-solving skills, decision making, communication and interpersonal skills. Here are some tips you can use when managing your team to benefit your company.

First, behind every successful business lies a great team. Teamwork maximizes the individual strengths of team members to bring out their best. Selecting individuals with the proper skills for the job is an important part of building a strong and successful team. When the right people are in place, work is always a priority and projects are completed effectively. You can find this out by:

  • How they embrace challenges
  • What motivates them
  • How the work with others
  • What their strengths and weaknesses are
  • How they handle stress and negative situations

When an effective team is set in stone they ensure success for your company operations.

Second, communicating the idea of success you’ve developed to your team in a way that clarifies both goals and expectations. All team members should trust, respect, and support each other, once the team is established and each member should know the value of their personal contribution to the team goal. By involving team members in the decision making process, it helps to limit conflict and complaints related to projects and tasks. The quality of decisions made will improve when the whole team is involved. Team decision making is beneficial, as it offers a diverse set of views that work towards creating a positive outcome for the company.

Third, conflict often arises when team members focus on personal issues rather than work related issues. Building a positive relationship with your colleagues can make for a much less stressful environment and work to reduce conflict. Teams who work particularly well together enjoy each other’s company and get together outside of the office from time to time to socialize and have some fun. This will lead to more productivity and success in the long run.

Finally, motivation can be in short supply during times of stress for some employees. However, if you have employees that approach work with a positive attitude and complete their tasks, other employees with recognize their hard work. Seeing others working productively will encourage underperforming employees to work harder as well. This will help to increase motivation and efficiency in your workplace.

Overall, these tips help to create an effective team and successful company!

The Days of Manual Data Collection are Over

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manual data collection and input to excel inefficient
Manual organization of data and project updates amongst a team may lead to greater margin for human error.

It is understandable that companies may want to cut expenses by performing manual documentation of data in a spreadsheet format for project organization. However, although a spreadsheet can provide these services it is not as diverse in efficiencies as web-based project management software powered by a commercial database. This type of software can provide multiple services such as employee scheduling, project scheduling, communication platform, organized documentation, and many more. 

Spreadsheets are known as a domain for manual data documentation which can be used for project management however, here are the reasons it is inefficient:

  • Manual data collection and documentation
  • No automatic assignment of tasks
  • No automatic updates and reports
  • No project updates or tracking
  • Manual financial calculations of resources

Further we will discuss why using web-based project management software within your company is more efficient and worth the investment:

Project Progression

The requirement of project manager’s to constantly question employees on the status of their project is an inefficient method prone to human error. This collection of information must also be diligently inputted into Excel by the one individual each time a round check-in has been performed. The frequent questioning of employee’s progress may cause them to feel a lack of trust towards their superiors. However, project management software can be utilized to avoid human error and maintain this trust within the team.

Dependency and Documentation

Utilizing spreadsheets within your company causes a great dependence on one individual to input and update data. This does not make it easy to track changes and alter timelines which are important functions when managing a project. The reliance on one individual and lack of tracking changes can very easily lead to errors in documentation. The implementation of web based project management software can track changes automatically and eliminate reliance on one individual.

Project Summaries

To provide a summary of all aspects of your project without the use of a project management software can become complex with multiple open tabs including emails, data, and documentation. 

In contrast project management software provides a detailed summary of the lifespan of your project. This type of  software has the capacity of managing all departments of an organization, not simply just the IT department. The functions of this software include but are not limited to; financials, project updates, scheduling, document organization, communication systems, and tasks.

Building Reports

Spreadsheets are simply a domain where data is inputted and stored, they do not provide a built-in reporting system. However, project management software builds reports for you so your time is not consumed scouring data and locating documents. 

Data Organization

Spreadsheets may be useful for storing data in one specific place but when it comes to managing a project, multiple members of the team need access to this information. There is usually one person in charge of maintaining the data updates when updates are manual. This means employees cannot make project updates in real time leading to a greater margin for error in data records. 

Project management software is intended to provide companies with the tools to maintain organization and efficiency within projects. 

Request a demo today to learn more about what project management software can do for your company.