Customer Experience

5 Reasons to Pick an IT AMC Service for Your Business

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The last, and perhaps the only, piece of technology humanity has perfected in the last 100 years is the ballpoint pen. Everything else, from your phone to your air conditioner, needs to be maintained and upgraded. With how complex our IT systems have become, especially in the business world, keeping track of all your IT assets and making sure they’re performing at maximum capacity is nearly impossible. 

That’s why IT service providers came up with IT annual maintenance contracts. Much like other BPO services you can lean on, IT AMCs take the burden of tech maintenance off your hands. While ease and peace of mind are good enough reasons for any service, IT AMC services have a variety of benefits. 

Understanding IT AMC

Before we start weighing the pros and cons, it’s important for us to understand what an IT maintenance contract. Simply put, it’s a comprehensive agreement between the IT service provider and your business outlining all the maintenance services they’ll provide in a calendar year, the scope of work, and the associated costs. While exact services can vary between companies and industries, the general services include: 

  • Preventive maintenance: Regular checkups and reviews of all your hardware and software IT assets to identify areas for improvement and necessary upgrades ahead of time. 
  • Remote support: You can avoid a costly in-house IT maintenance department with access to technical support via phone, email, or remote access.
  • On-site support: For problems that demand a more personal touch, most IT AMC service providers will have on-site professionals. 
  • Hardware and software updates: Applications, software, networks, and servers are constantly being upgraded for maximum performance.
  • Security services: IT AMC service providers also help boost your cybersecurity. 

 

Cost Savings

In business, the bottom line takes precedence over most functions. IT assets are expensive, and any help you can get bringing down installation and maintenance costs is welcome. With IT AMC service providers, you can expect: 

Predictable Costs: AMCs generally operate on a fixed monthly fee, eliminating the uncertainty of unexpected repair costs. Think of it like insurance for your IT assets. Not only does it protect your budget from landslide maintenance costs, it lets you create a more accurate annual budget. 

Preventative Maintenance: Replacing technology assets can be insanely expensive. It’s not just about the cost of the machinery, but the opportunity cost of operational downtime. Regular maintenance extends the life of your assets and protects you from unexpected breakdowns. 

Bulk Discounts: Businesses love economies of scale, even when it comes to maintenance. An annual contract for bulk services gives you a chance to negotiate better rates than individual maintenance projects. 

Improved Efficiency

There’s more than one way to improve your budget performance. Most people stop at increasing revenue and decreasing costs but ignore the third pillar of cost reduction: efficiency. Streamlining your operations helps you shave costs and save time in places you never could have imagined, and IT AMCs are one of the best ways to boost organizational efficiency. 

Proactive Maintenance: As we mentioned above, AMCs are maintenance contracts at their core, and preventing asset breakdown is their core function. By organizing your maintenance projects for the entire year, you can place around maintenance downtime and avoid costly interruptions in operations. 

Expert Support: There’s nothing stopping you from setting up your own IT maintenance department, especially if your company is large enough to afford it. However, it’s still likely your department won’t even come close to the efficiency and expertise a dedicated IT AMC service provider can achieve. They have experts for any problem you may encounter, ensuring consistent and competent support. This leaves you free to focus on your core processes. 

Standardized Processes: When your entire business is focused on finding the best way to organize maintenance, you can come up with standard operations procedures that simplify the entire process. Having a set framework helps avoid errors and reduces the risk of prolonged downtime. 

Enhanced Security

There’s an understandable security concern associated with outsourcing any of your business processes, especially your IT assets. You can rest assured knowing IT AMC service providers are heavily regulated and bound by severe non-disclosure agreements that protect you from any malpractice. Additionally, they have an entire department dedicated to boosting your organization's security. 

Proactive Security Measures: While there are frameworks in place to protect you from any security emergencies, your primary coat of armor is regular maintenance and upgrades of your security protocols. This can include organization-wide security assessments, vulnerability scanning, patch management, access control management, and much more. 

Regular Updates: Hackers work day and night trying to find new ways to circumvent your security infrastructure, so it’s only fair for you to put the same amount of effort into protecting yourself. IT AMCs keep your security systems and firewalls up to date with the latest industry standard and the best security patches, which is an essential step to proactive security. 

Incident Response: No firewall is impenetrable, and there’s no such thing as 100% secure. Breaches are bound to happen, and you need to be prepared. Thankfully, incident response is a core feature of a good maintenance contract. These departments have pre-designed frameworks for different kinds of breaches and quickly respond. 

Scalability and flexibility

We already talked about how setting up an in-house IT maintenance department can be very expensive, but that doesn’t even take into account the fluid nature of modern businesses. You need to be able to upscale or downscale your operations to maximize efficiency at a moment’s notice. 

Imagine setting up a comprehensive maintenance department only for requirements to drop. Not only will your installation cost go to waste, you’ll have a fixed monthly cost going down the drain. IT AMc service providers protect you from these excess costs with: 

Customized Services: All annual maintenance contracts are tailored to your organization's size and your specific needs the moment you hire the service provider. The nature of their business lets them set up departments of any size with minimal additional cost. 

Scalability: If you’re forced to drop clients due to some new regulations or you need to upscale to accommodate new business, AMC providers can adjust their services to accommodate any changes in your strategy. This helps you maintain consistency in your IT department as your business grows and evolves. 

Flexibility: While it’s still a ‘contract’, IT AMCs are often super flexible. Contract terms are easily adjustable, and there are multiple service levels you can choose between, or change to, according to your business needs. 

Peace of Mind

All entrepreneurs and businessmen know the value of reliable, secure, and competent service providers. We mentioned peace of mind above, but we feel it deserves a section of its own simply because of how far it can push your core business. 

Guaranteed Support: With a reliable IT AMC service provider, you won’t be scrambling for a fix every time something goes wrong. Your general anxiety goes down because you know your assets are up to date, and even if something goes wrong, you know you have a set of professionals on their way to fix it. 

Risk Mitigation: There’s a lot of risk in developing IT assets, and outsourcing their maintenance offers valuable protections from the risks associated with IT infrastructure management. 

Focus on Core Business: The more time you spend worrying about your outdated IT assets and scrambling for quick fixes, the less time you have to actually grow your business. Outsourcing such a time- and energy-consuming department increases your productivity and pushes you towards your strategic goals. 

IT annual maintenance contracts should be your top priority if you’re considering outsourcing some of your business processes. It may not be as glamorous as outsourcing customer engagement or using staff augmentation services to broaden your workforce. However, chances are that it saves you the most time, money, and resources.

Customer Experience

Effective Customer Retention Strategies for Long-Term Business Growth

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With increasing clicks and conversion costs, it’s better to retain existing customers than acquiring new ones.

The importance of customer retention is highly understated. It evidently suggests that your customer trust your brands and services and continue to remain loyal in the long run. Retaining customers for a business is very important as it plays a significant role in their growth.

What is Customer Retention?

This is the practice of growing a business’s repeat customer rate and mining added value from the present customers. The basic purpose of customer retention is to guarantee your customers are making recurrent purchases, are content with your services and do not turn to your competitor.

Here are some techniques that your business can implement to boost customer retention.

    • Welcome Series

      This is basically an idea which makes use of email welcome series which sets the tone for any interactions between the business and client. It enables you to build a solid foundation from the very start to increase your customer base.

      You can achieve this via number of emails like:

      Email1: Introduce your brand in a very unique manner presenting its value propositions.
      Email 2: You can communicate the brand values the business has

      Email 3: Display all the products you offer through this email so the client has an idea of what you are offering

      Email 4: In this email you can offer an incentive to encourage the client to make the purchase

      It is not necessary that you go with the sales pitch right away. A brand introduction, how it may assist the customers, what you believe in, is likely to convey the idea of the bigger picture to the customers.

    • Evolve your Offerings

      Providing a diverse variety in your product offerings forms the basis for brands to stand out in the competitive market of today. Moreover, brands need to consistently engage with their customers so as to keep them updated with the relevant information regarding their offers.

      You can customise on your loyalty programs which will help your brand build a community of engaged customers that are likely to purchase on a frequent basis.

      Personalisation is also a prerequisite to grow your customer base. These are basically custom offers like providing exclusive deals on important days like their birthdays etc, sending them private emails and discounts with special codes. This makes them happy and willing to make repeat purchases and choose your brand over others as the rewards suit them.

      You can also provide customers with an option of choosing their own loyalty program. You can do this by allowing members to select a free gift within a certain price range from its best sellers list. Take it one step further by introducing a points system which your customers can use against the complete list of products you provide.

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Customer Experience

How to Choose the Right Remote IT Support Service Provider

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There have been rapid changes going on in the field of technology. Cybersecurity is rising day by day, businesses are scaling and so are their needs. With growth comes growing compliance requirements. And with all of these challenges, a remote IT support service provider can be your best choice.

IT services are a broad spectrum of services and almost all companies need them, excluding or including a few of them. These services include everything from applications to compliance to cybersecurity, including cloud computing and physical infrastructure. Making an internal IT team with such an extensive set of skills is not only time consuming, but it also requires a considerable amount of resources.

To avoid that hassle, companies, from small to medium sized enterprises, outsource their IT tasks to a third party, whether temporarily or permanently.

Selecting An IT Service Partner

As an SME business owner, it is a crucial decision to outsource a chunk of your IT work to a technology partner. The right decision can lead to exponential growth and scalability without holding your business back. Streamlined ops, minimal security risks, and reduced timelines for research, development, and deployment can make a business grow by leaps and bounds.

You need to analyze some parameters of the offered services of an IT Service Provider. Here are some of the most important ones.

  • Know Your Tech Needs

Usually, when you are choosing any business provider, you have to know what you are looking for and it is directly based on your needs. If you need IT services for physical infrastructure, you will see which service providers give services based on physical infrastructure. You may want cloud based, considering the trend and changing times, or you may feel comfortable in a hybrid working system. However, your requirements will filter out a lot of service providers that do not fit your needs.

When planning, you need to know your starting point, the point where you see yourself, and how you will get there. The growth and prospects of a potential tech partner show you what you can expect from them later in the line too. Having some clarity with regard to the service providers’ needs and approach to their operations says a lot about a company’s performance and helps in finalizing a tech service provider.

 It is also encouraged to be transparent about your budget as the IT service providers get a clearer view of the kind of resources they can provide to fit your budget criterion. And you don’t need a detailed investment plan from the start. Usually, service providers give a ball park figure and they can also help you prioritize your needs that are either needed right away or may be needed in the long run.

  • Referrals

In the professional world, networks and referrals are invaluable. After gaining an understanding of your needs and wants, you need to get some solid references about which IT service providers are the best in the market. You can easily do some research on the internet and find a lot of service providers with excellent standings and offerings.

However, knowing a few people who have experience with outsourced IT support services, can go a long way in getting the best options. As a business owner or a stakeholder, you should have a wide network that can advise you in getting the best tech partner. In case your network has a few people working for or running remote IT services companies, you can easily get a closer look at their services.

  • Requirements vs. Services Offered

Every tech company that offers IT services will have a different set of services. You may not even get a 100% match of your requirements with the services these companies offer. In the list of offered services, you will have to take a look at which requirements you will have to drop to have a near match with potential tech partners.

IT service providers may work and specialize in technologies different than what you may require. Identifying the technologies is also a part of finding the right tech service provider. Many IT support companies have capabilities of centralization. It is not necessary that your service providers have an in-house team for everything. They might be using partnerships with vendors and other players in the same industry.

In any case, you may not need to talk to multiple people to get multiple services. You will also not need to coordinate with vendors if your IT support collaborator is committing to take care of those things.

  • Proactive Over Reactive

Many people detest reactive working when it is an effective model of technology support. Software and hardware break down and ultimately need to be fixed. Reactive IT support is a forever toolkit used by IT service providers.

Despite all that, reactive services are not the only support services model available. Recurring vulnerabilities need to be prevented or else they can incur a cost that could have been avoided. For that, your business requires a proactive support system and services. IT service providers can tell you about their approach to technology support and troubleshooting so you understand if their methodologies match your requirements and are satisfied with them. 

  • Security Priority

Cybersecurity is on the rise, especially in the region of MENA. With large scale cyber attacks, one can only make sure that you have the best security experts on your side. It is going to be one of the non-negotiable services where you require top of the class skill and technology to keep your business safe from cyber-damages. 

The security practices of your IT service partner are needed to be impeccable. You should inquire about their vendor management systems, internal governance, regulatory oversight and risk assessment and management.

Conclusion:

These are some of the best ways to find a suitable IT service provider for your business. To have a better judgment, you can also look for the kinds of planning your provider offers and that they have the right synergy to work alongside your business. 

If you are interested in outsourcing your IT tasks, contact us here at ibex MENA. We are transforming the region with our state-of-the-art technology of global standards. We are the pioneers of the BPO industry and outsource all IT services you require.

Customer Experience

Find the Best Call Center Outsourcing Services Company in Dubai (2023)

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Outsourcing has become very common in recent years with the number of organizations using call center services in Dubai rising dramatically. When it comes to finding an outsourcing call center it becomes all the more difficult as there are many factors that you have to keep under consideration. 

Here we have listed some tips so you can find your UAE Best Call Center Service Provider.

Industry Experience

This stands as one of the most crucial factors when on a look out for the best call center outsourcing company in Dubai. Industry knowledge is imperative as it is what forms the basis for your business operations to carry out. 

The company must be equipped with sufficient experience to handle all kind of difficulties and hardships that arise during projects. Besides, it must be able to deal with all the customer queries that come their way and provide effective solutions as per the projects requirements. 

Qualified Staff

Verification of professionals and personnel that is engaged in the projects is important in finding the best call center solutions in Dubai. It is important for the personal to possess the capacity of dealing with all the issues and completing all tasks on a timely basis. You must check if the outsourcing company has a training and development program for its employees for maintaining maximum efficiency and meeting project deadlines. 

Budget and Pricing

Payment is extremely important when selecting the best call center outsourcing company in Dubai. For this you must examine what prices the rivals are offering as well as the service quality. Then you can negotiate with the agencies to get the best value within your allocated budget without having to sacrifice on the quality. 

Cost effectiveness is one of the main reasons for most companies to outsource their services, so it remains critical that the cost be thoroughly examined before finding the outsourcing partner

Top Quality Assurance

The BPO service provider must be of top-notch quality and free of all errors. The quality of the projects assigned are directly linked to the quality of the service delivery they provide. Upon interaction with outsourcing companies, it must be certified that they are active correspondents and their services are error free in all respects. You should also confirm to consider the steps the third-party service providers take to reserve the projects eminence. 

Technological Standards

This aspect basically measures the value of the project’s quality. Check with call center services in Dubai that are well defined in bringing projects that are up to date with technological prowess, otherwise an outdated project will only be obsolete and not serve any purpose. Check for timely updates in relation to the software being used to undertake tasks and operations. This will guarantee that all clients requirements are contented.

Data Security

When you have to choose between using cloud based or premise-based services from your outsourcing partner, it is important that you consider the data compliance and security procedures the company employs. You will be disclosing very sensitive data to the agency which must not be leaked and safeguarded by all means. 

Therefore, it is important that you sign a non-disclosure agreement and know the kind of security measures it takes in the form of paperwork. Before you make a choice leading call center in Dubai, all cloud platforms and privacy settings must be verified to make sure you can retrieve useful data anytime in case you lose it. 

Global Presence

You must always see whether the call center outsourcing company has a history of dealing with clients on a global level. This sort of engagement allows you to interact and communicate with clients from diverse backgrounds and expertise and equips you with the ability to deal with difficult situations. 

Moreover, it’s a fact, that organizations with a vast global presence tend to possess better communication skills which remains and integral factor while finding the right call center outsourcing partner. 

References

As you embark on finding the best call center outsourcing company in Dubai, you must look into the variety of supplier the company has had in the past. This will give you an idea of their clientele services and rates. 

In case of a recommendation, you must make use of it or at least connect with them as you note its source. This may assist you in obtaining reasonable process for the services you offer as well as superior quality as brand reputation will be involved. 

Understand the Integration

The integration process can begin when you have made the agreement and are prepared to proceed. This process can vary widely depending on the service that the call center is hired and the approach it takes. Thus, it makes easy to unite the hardware’s and software’s and any information-based technology as per need.

The Final Verdict

So, when on a look out for Call center services in Dubai for your business, you must keep the factors mentioned above in mind. Industry knowledge and experience along with global presence, technological standards, good reference, data security, budgeting, quality assurance are all very important to get the maximum benefits from the BPO service provider you partner with.

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