In the modern business constellation, IT is not only a nice-to-have technology, but it is an integrated and indispensable element of your everyday business processes. Computing tasks, data storage, and interpretation, as well as business intelligence processes and strategies, rely heavily on your IT solutions. Consequently, there is nothing more disruptive than coming across difficulties that put your IT at risk.
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Whether it’s the iconic blue screen that keeps your employees from completing daily jobs or whether it’s a cyberattack that exposes your customers’ data, when the IT breaks, a wind of panic blows across the company.
How do you best react when things don’t work the way they should anymore? Companies that share their fears and anxiety with the public are likely to lose both credibility and professional reputation. You need to display control, strategy, and understanding. More importantly, your customers rely on you to provide the reassurance they need.
Ensure your team is ready to support customers
Your priority when things go wrong is to evaluate and understand how it can affect your customers. Imagine you are a small airline company. Your self-checking platform at the airport has frozen. All passengers can see is a blue screen claiming that there was a fatal system error/ With no technician on site, you need to wait until the emergency repairman is available to sort out the issue for you. In the meantime, your employees at the desk need to do everything they can to support distressed passengers who can’t check-in. It’s a long and slow job, but it will make a great deal of difference to your passengers. How do you make sure, however, that your staff can stay friendly, professional and helpful in a hectic situation? Training is one thing. But making it worth their while is just as essential. Underpaid employees are less likely to want to go the extra mile in a panic situation. As they rightly put it themselves, they’re not paid enough to care.
What’s your recovery/emergency plan?
The best course of action when things go wrong is it make sure you’ve got a recovery or backup plan from the start. That’s precisely why more and more small and midsize businesses prefer to look into the possibility of managed IT services with the option to receive inclusive support. Contrary to hiring an expert on-site, the advantage of relying on a dedicated partner for your IT means that crisis, threats and technical issues can be tackled in a timely and more effective manner.
Any lesson or improvement for the future?
Last, but not least, fixing the issue is essential to the progression of your business. However, the way you inform your audience about IT problems can also affect your company. Indeed, from data breach to major technical issues, the key to approach communication in a crisis situation is to be honest about it. Tell your employees and customers the truth and explain how you’re going to solve it. Additionally, always conclude with the promise of future preventive measures to avoid the similar issue from happening again.
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IT is an inherent element of your business processes. When it breaks, everything breaks. But don’t let the panic hit you! On the contrary, make sure customers are managed while you work with specialists to solve the problem and offer preventive measures.
