Why your Support Services Should be Separate from your Integrator

With complex building environments requiring constant upkeep to ensure your teams get the most out of their investment in facilities, including the technology in meeting rooms, collaboration spaces, private work areas, and even “chill-out zones,” it stands to reason that you would want someone paying attention to the little things.

This is where the integrator will usually come in.

They sold and installed the entire set-up, so why wouldn’t they be the best team to correct an issue?

Ready to arrive with a toolbelt and a hero’s cape, your integrator is often the first phone call when your technology and AV equipment starts to cause problems.

While this approach has worked well for many in the past, reducing the number of phone calls needed to get things moving, this is no longer the case.

What’s the problem?

A standard response time for an integrator to provide a service call-out to investigate a faulty device can be up to 48 hours. This may cause continuous disruption before the problem can even be identified correctly.

Replacement parts may be required at an additional cost, and with current supply chain issues and a general shortage of technology goods in the market, this could be both costly and time-consuming.

Your integrator may also have an interest in promoting certain equipment, sometimes to the detriment of your own timelines and usage requirements.

What’s the alternative?

Having a technology and AV support service in place, separate from your integrator, can remove or significantly reduce many of these obstacles.

Your support team will not have a commercial interest in the sale or lease of AV equipment. You can trust their advice as truly neutral and aligned with your long-term interests, focused on cost reduction and functionality.

Where your support team is vendor agnostic and does not favour certain providers or manufacturers, they will prioritise the best result for the end user rather than an existing commercial partnership or their own device stock.

With a differentiated support arm, not only can faults be addressed immediately, but a customer-first perspective will explore alternative solutions. This may include moving the meeting to another available space, utilising mobile equipment, or working collaboratively with the host to achieve the best possible outcome.

What’s the point?

Some of Australia’s highest-level enterprise organisations are experimenting with different, and sometimes hybrid, approaches to their overall technology support strategy.

One example is adopting the best of both worlds. It is rarely good advice to completely do away with your integrator as a trusted partner in the long-term management of your facilities. However, by leveraging a dedicated support team, you can minimise the amount of your own time invested in managing those relationships and rely on a skilled resource to advocate on your behalf, while still holding all parties accountable to clear performance expectations.

By investing in even a single on-site support resource, you can dramatically reduce system downtime and mitigate the much larger costs associated with continuous service call-outs and equipment replacement through your integrator for what are often simple, easily resolved issues.