The challenge of demonstrating value in IT

If you work in tech support, it can be difficult to describe what you do. Your elevator pitch – that one or two-liner that shares with people what you do in your job or business – is probably pretty boring. Demonstrating overall value in IT is equally challenging.

It’s hard to make day-to-day information technology relatable, but here are a couple of attempts I have made to explain what we do:

– “We help businesses with anything that plugs into a wall, except your microwave.”

– “We save businesses from dealing with hackers. And we’re also there to help with day-to-day tech problems.”

– “We take business work computers, and put them on a cloud so people can work from any device.”

Hmm. Still working on how to make tech support a compelling story.

It’s okay that none of those descriptions sound super fun or sexy. Not every job involves heart surgery, space exploration, or dogs. We’re quite proud that our humdrum business keeps many other regular businesses safely connected to technology! Which brings to me to my second point.

How do we let people know about the value of this work, especially when everyone does it differently?

Demonstrating value in IT can be hard sometimes even when we are speaking with people who already use or need IT services. This is especially the case when we are pitching our own services to potential clients.

I often hear praise from prospects about how their current firms resolved an issue quickly. That is great if that issue could not have been caught or resolved in the first place, before it got to the client. Tech problems always occur, and it’s important to jump on them quickly when they do.

But the catch is, those are often issues that many IT companies wouldn’t have allowed to happen in the first place. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly.

We need to work on our tech support elevator pitch for new clients too. Standing apart from the pack is a challenge for many businesses who have a lot of competition. How do we make the details about our service, which so many find snooze-worthy, compelling enough to warrant further conversation? Sexy or not, smart IT should be a top priority for any company. It affects your finances, customer service, productivity, data security, and your stress levels!

Colin Pearce is Inderly’s CEO.

A 10-year veteran in the IT space, Colin has provided support and advisory services to hundreds of Canadian businesses employing thousands of staff. Having grown tired of selling businesses IT stuff they need, but don’t understand, he decided to create an easy platform that includes almost all required IT infrastructure. Now he can spend his time focusing on how to make business technology work for your unique situation.