Hey IT Pros! Service Providers have a lot in common with you.

A couple months ago, we were quoting a few different providers for a client and they mozied on over to Yelp to read the reviews.  Ouch.  Once again, I found myself explaining why Yelp is not a good place to form your opinion on business service providers.

People never stop and think… “Wow, my provider hasn’t had an outage or glitch in 6 months… I think I’ll go on over and post a raving review on Yelp!”  Nope.

… but if you have an issue with a service provider and you get a person in customer care that isn’t very nice… Yelp and everyone around you is gonna hear about it.

Now, as I’m describing this kind of behavior, as an IT Professional within a company, does this hit a nerve?  Not the outage – I know that brings up bad memories of bad providers… but what about how the person never notices when things are working well that the providers go unnoticed… until something bad happens and they are pounced on….  Sound familiar?

Yes, that’s YOU, IT Folk!

Nobody ever appreciates that the LAN has never gone down or that their data hasn’t ever been lost (even when they lost their laptop), or that their VoIP phone worked perfectly when they plugged it in at home, etc., etc., etc.

…but … if the server is ever down for an hour… here come the complaints!

If people only knew how many moving parts the IT Department is dealing with, they’d appreciate how miraculous it is that everything usually works and works well sometimes for months and months on end without a glitch.  That’s actually an amazing feat!

So I’m gonna break the norm and take this opportunity to thank you people.   Both IT Departments and Service Providers.  You guys are awesome and do a ton without much gratitude.  You are both extremely unappreciated and it’s time people stop and point out some of the great things you make possible.  Like keeping my computer working to write this blog.  Thanks!

…and IT Pros, next time a cloud or telecom service provider goes 6+ months without an outage, give them some love on AeroCom!  Don’t let a service provider with 40,000 customers only have 25 reviews on Yelp… all negative.

About the Author
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been immersed in the business telecom and cloud industry since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. Mike is passionate about simplifying the way IT buyers shop and select telecom and cloud solutions for their company. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.