The vast majority of respondents (85%) believe that their organisation’s most prominent current IT vendor can improve its service, with only 14% stating that they are satisfied with the current service they receive.
Furthermore, over seven in ten respondents stated that cost (75%) or service (71%) are in their top three factors that matter the most to their organisation when looking for an IT vendor, with around a quarter (22%) saying that service is the most important factor.
The study, which surveyed 150 IT decision-makers across several different industries including financial services, retail, higher education, business services and media, looked into the real value of service and found that when it comes to pricing, businesses are not necessarily looking for those providers willing to engage in a race to the bottom. Although price does remain the main concern, and with budgets tightening in light of uncertainty around Brexit, businesses are increasingly recognising the need for strong scalability capability, to cope with the peaks and troughs they experience.
Susan Bowen, VP and General Manager, EMEA at Cogeco Peer 1 said: “Good customer service has often been overlooked in favour of competitive pricing and exciting new products in the IT market, but more and more businesses are finding the service they receive isn’t living up to their expectations or needs, as they grow.
“Having dedicated technical account managers, fast-turnaround on enquiries and 24/7 support can make more of a difference to their bottom line than the expertise the vendor brings or product flexibility, in a service outage or data breach situation, for instance.”
Almost all (95%) believe their IT vendor could improve in some aspect, with over half (54%) stating that their IT vendor’s service is one of the most pressing things they could improve.
