How did Covid-19 affect the IT Support Industry, and what’s next?

The effects of the Coronavirus pandemic have had a significant impact on business operations across the country, especially for companies in the IT support space, mainly due to the shift to remote working.

Nigel Phillips, Managing Director at Westgate IT – an IT support company based in Bristol among other locations in the south-west – explains how Westgate IT have adapted to the changing landscape.

How did Covid-19 impact the industry?

Yes, just like every other industry Covid-19 has impacted the way we work a lot, especially due to the influx of people working from their homes. We learnt to adapt, adjusting our practises almost immediately to ensure we’re always on top of our game, offering our clients the best service possible. One thing we have noticed is a high influx of support calls just after the weekend, sometimes an additional 40%. We have also seen the opposing effects of this, which we have coined internally as ‘The Netflix Effect’. On a Friday afternoon everything slows down considerably more than pre-Covid-19. People are winding down for the weekend, switching on Netflix and preparing for a relaxing evening. IT support is not at the top of their agenda and usually it can wait until Monday.

How did you adapt?

At Westgate, when we adapt we have our clients at heart. We want to ensure that we are supporting the way our clients want to work and not to suit ourselves. By analysing the needs of our clients, we were able to pin-point where we needed to improve, we would advise other businesses in the industry to do the same.

For example, following the increase of ‘The Netflix Effect’ we boosted the resources available via telephone during these busy periods after the weekend. No one should ever have to wait on the phone, there is nothing more frustrating than listening to the same song over and over again whilst on hold. So, to combat this we introduced a ring back service which allowed callers to keep their position in the queue without having to stay on the phone.
As well, homeworking introduced a lot more flexibility for work schedules, to match this we increased our support hours from 8am to 10pm. This ensured that clients working out of hours had the opportunity to reach us.

How does working from home differ from the office?

Remote working requires even more support than in an office setting. When based in an office, people have the luxury of asking for help from others around them, before calling for guidance. However, when working from home picking up the phone to get that instant support is the first point of call. Also, a lot of the issues that come with working from home vary from issues in the office, especially at the beginning of Covid-19 as it was the first time many people were dealing with them. Issues with VPNs and connectivity were the most frequent and urgent, as unfortunately they can stop people from working altogether.

What does the future look like for the IT Support industry?

During Covid-19 nearly everyone in the country retreated to their homes, and home-working became a normality. It’s very clear that working from home is here to stay. At Westgate IT, we suspect that from now and in the months to come, many businesses will attempt to strike a balance between working at home and in the office.
As an IT support company we anticipate that many businesses will struggle to maintain top security, whilst offering employees the option to move seamlessly between the two locations. In preparation for this, Westgate IT has invested in a range of tools to ensure devices are fully patched and maintained wherever your team member is working.

Tools such as:

Infrastructure Monitoring – agent based server monitoring to view KPIs of Windows, Linux, VMware hosts, FreeBSD, Docker and macOS servers.

Remote Control – Westgate IT’s management control has the ability to connect to a machine swiftly and smoothly, without the lengthy task of downloading agents.

Cloud Monitoring – monitor resource usage and operational data for severa cloud services running on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).|

To find out more about how Westgate IT can support your business through this transition, or for general IT support, you can visit their website here.