Providing IT support to your important clients is full of responsibilities.  But which are really required to be part of your services?

1.     Coordinate Telecommunications Solutions.  When you are dealing with sweet spot clients, you will have to coordinate IT support with a local phone company – CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) or ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier).  You’ll have to help clients get a leased line and also research which types of connections your clients will need.  You will also probably have to give basic dial-up networking recommendations and coordinate tech support with ISPs for your long-term clients.
 
2.    Get Ready to Test.  As part of IT support, you will probably have to know about vertical industry-niched applications.  You might bring the applications in yourself or your clients may already have them and want your firm to test and evaluate the application before they make the investment.  Regardless, your job will be to evaluate how the application fits in with your clients’ sophisticated network.  

3.    Train the Guru … or the Masses.  Your firm will have to be involved in training, no matter what.  Sometimes the training may be formal end-user training involving small groups and new applications.  The training can also be more informal and just be with the internal guru that everyone comes to with problems and questions.  When you train the guru, you help the guru offer IT support for the others when it comes to simple tasks.  

4.    You Can Expect Disaster.  You will need to be plan for disaster with IT support.  This means you’ll have to check out the data backup system, antivirus software, power protection and security regularly along with engage in very proactive maintenance of systems.

You will be most valuable to customers with IT support when you have great problem-solving and strategic-planning skills.  You have to be ready to help with everything that is IT related and organize a very specific list of IT support priorities.

Added By:  Joshua Feinberg