Onboarding with Compex IT: As Easy and Worry-Free as It Should Be

We completely get it: you rely on your business IT systems to operate, delight customers and grow. Without them, you’re lost at sea.

Like anything in life, you don’t always miss what you have until it’s gone. This is why so many businesses fear technological change – particularly when it comes to their IT support provider.

You may have relied on the same company for years, and even when you know things aren’t right, the idea of switching can be pretty unnerving.

What if everything stops working? What if the outgoing provider takes with them stuff you desperately need? What if the new provider doesn’t get how you use your systems?

Here’s some good news: you can switch IT providers seamlessly and without any of the hassle you may have heard about elsewhere.

You just need to pick the right company. And that’s where Compex IT comes in. Our onboarding process for new clients is so straightforward, we’ve nailed it down to just three steps.

Common reasons for switching IT providers

Deep down, you’ll know when you need to switch IT providers, but it’s sometimes tricky to put your finger on exactly why.

It could be a combination of things or one overriding challenge you simply can’t look past, but here are some of the most common reasons you might need to move on from your current IT supplier:

they don’t seem to understand your business sector and regularly ask questions to which they should know the answer
you’re still getting viruses and malware infections without any proactive effort on their behalf to address the source of the problem
they never accept responsibility
the contractual details of your relationships have become far more important to them
you’re forever waiting for calls back and email replies
they seem to have grown far too big for you and feel like an entirely different, faceless company
there’s too much tech talk you don’t understand
you’re not learning anything from them
you’ve outgrown them – you’re too big, basically

Do any of the above feel familiar to you? If so, it’s always best to act on your gut instinct and change. No hard feelings – this current relationship just isn’t working for you anymore.

Why choose Compex IT?

We work with a vast range of businesses across a number of sectors. This is why we can apply our IT know-how to virtually any organisation.

Despite this experience, we treat every single customer as the unique entity it is. You know your business better than we do, which is why we’ll work with you to understand your unique challenges and requirements. The IT support that follows won’t waver from those needs or your business goals – it’ll be perfectly aligned.

We’re a friendly bunch, too. We know our onions, but we don’t throw them at you in the form of meaningless acronyms. You’ll witness this during the onboarding process; it will be jargon-free, and you won’t be expected to take on any unnecessary responsibility for switching from your support provider to us. After all, this isn’t a task you undertake every week (unlike us!).

Is switching IT providers easy?

Yes – providing you switch to us. We know better than anyone that other providers take far too long and spend most of the process criticising the outgoing company.

We don’t do that, because life is too short, and we know you simply want to switch providers; you don’t need any chest-beating from us (we’ll demonstrate what we’re worth in the service we provide).

Let’s dispel a few common myths about switching IT providers:

“It’s too expensive” – actually, you’ll probably save money in the long run
“The new company won’t understand how we use our systems” – they will if they ask the right questions
“Everything will stop working – we can’t afford any downtime” – there’s no reason for anything to stop working for any considerable period of time during the transition – if at all
“It’ll take ages” – it won’t; this stuff is easy when you know what you’re doing

Most important, if you switch to Compex for your IT support, we’ll work closely with your existing provider to ensure everything is handed over with minimal input on your behalf and with next to no downtime.

The 3-step Compex IT onboarding process

Sit back, grab a hot drink and relax. This is going to be ridiculously easy.

Step 1: Administrative Tasks

After a welcome email and package in the post, we’ll send you an ‘intake survey’. This is used to grab all of the important details we need (contact info, user accounts, security issues – that kind of thing) and takes a maximum of 10 minutes to complete.

We’ll also explain how often we bill you, how to find your invoice history and the payment terms, just to get that boring stuff out of the way.

Behind the scenes, we then create your own space on our support ticketing system that includes all the necessary details about your business for our team to reference when needed.

A series of emails will be sent to you in the days that follow which reveal how to contact us and work with our team, but we’ll also add you to our newsletters which offer awesome advice for making the most of the IT systems you have.

Lastly, if any third-party billing needs to be transferred to us (for instance, Office 365), we’ll do that during this stage, too. We’ll also make note of any vendors we may need to contact and setup all of the security details pertaining to users, access authority, and how to deal with sensitive requests.

Step 2: Account Manager Tasks

This is when we schedule a meeting with you to kick off the relationship. These typically last around 60 minutes and give you the chance to ask us any questions you might have. We’ll reveal how our support service works and introduce you to the team members you’ll work with.

This meeting will cover everything you need to know, and while there’s a structure to it, we’re happy for it to go in any direction that best suits you. So, if you want to focus on security – that’s cool. Equally, if you’re more interested in the initial technology roadmap, we can focus intently on that.

During this step, we’ll also talk about what happens next. For instance:

When is the cutover/go-live date?
When will a Compex engineer be on site?
What technical changes can be expected?
What’s expected from the outgoing IT company?

During this time, we’ll give every member of your team a ‘New Client Manual’ which is a physical 10-page manual, it includes the best ways to get support from us, how fast we respond, the escalation procedure etc.

Lastly, we’ll send out three important pieces of documentation (nothing too boring, we promise) to ensure everything goes as smoothly as it should:

Client vendor management letter: for management of your business apps, telecoms, print company, ISP, etc.
IT takeover pack: sent to your outgoing provider to ensure we gather the right information for a seamless transition (passwords, device info – that kind of thing).
Client sample policies: these include policies for password management, email, internet usage, remote working and more.

We’ll also schedule 30-, 60-, and 90-day onboarding reviews to ensure everything is transitioning as smoothly as it should.

Step 3: Technical Tasks and Password Changes

Step 3 is split into two phases – technical tasks, and password changes.

The technical tasks are undertaken by us and include:

installation or removal of agents on all computers and servers;
removal of previous IT company software;
photos of your environment for faster troubleshooting in future;
gathering of all software licenses;
an audit of your backup services;
review and documenting of the network, including firewall configurations;
removal of old antivirus software and installation of new antivirus software; and
implementation of security best practices.

The latter is particularly important and will include the setup of 2-factor authentication where available, and advanced email protection for Office 365. We’ll also setup automated backups for you and ensure you’re using the best web protection software.

The second phase of step three relates to password and credential changes.

Our team will:

document all password changes and save them securely on our system (you’ll have your own record of this, too);
set up new client admin account for our services; and
disable or delete anything that might pose a security risk.

The latter task might include removing unnecessary administration accounts, resetting “at-risk” user passwords, and resetting or removing any access that could enable the previous support company to gain access.

Worry no more about switching IT providers. As you can see from our three-step approach, it should be effortless on your part and result in a far more secure IT platform which is fully supported by our brilliant, responsive team.