B&G Sales Switches to Hungerford for Managed Services

B&G Sales administrative and freight coordinator Shannon Graham will be the first to admit she was nervous about the onboarding process with her organization’s new managed service provider.

“It seemed like it was going to be an extremely hectic situation,” she said, “but (Hungerford Technologies) made it bearable. … Pretty smooth sailing.”

It’s an overwhelming process for an organization to find an MSP that aligns with its goals and values. But even after the contract is signed comes another hurdle: onboarding

It’s an arduous task that can be stressful for both sides if not properly executed. In B&G’s case, it wants to ensure there is no downtime that will equate to a loss in productivity or sales. For HT, if onboarding its new client comes with several hiccups or issues, it doesn’t make a good first impression and hampers the relationship going forward.

Onboarding involves several projects, including documenting employees; documenting assets such as laptops, servers and more; refreshing workstations; installing security software; learning any line-of-business software; configuring permissions and much more.

To accomplish these tasks efficiently, an MSP needs to be in constant communication with the client, ensuring everything is accounted for and properly configured so the go-live date happens with little to no hiccups.

Open Communication, Easy Support Service

B&G, a Caledonia-based seller of waste equipment, dropped its former MSP and signed with HT in late 2023.

Since the switch, Graham said she has been impressed with HT’s customer service and noted the response times for submitted tickets have been outstanding. When B&G would call its previous MSP’s help desk to solve an issue, oftentimes the issues were unresolved until Graham took matters into her own hands by Googling the issue and solving it herself.

“(HT is) very personable and very easy to work with,” she said.

Graham also said she enjoys how the HT Support app is intuitive and easy to use, allowing her to designate how quickly an issue should be solved, as well as describe the issue in written form as opposed to articulating it verbally.

“I absolutely love the ticket app you have and how you can set the priority (level),” she said. “And I can turn in tickets for people who are not PC savvy.

“I don’t have to pick up the phone, call, wait, be put on hold.”

Unaggressive Recommendations Means No Surprises Later

B&G felt its previous MSP was too pushy with equipment sales.

“We were very unhappy with our previous IT company,” Graham said.

Outside of fixing things when they break, HT takes the time to discuss current and future goals with its clients, a process referred to as budgeting and roadmapping.

While it won’t be possible to predict every failure, it will help organizations plan for and identify risk so they aren’t surprised by unexpected costs.

Budget planning involves documenting assets and recurring costs and determining when things will need to be replaced. The costliest way for an organization to maintain its IT infrastructure is to ignore risk and only replace systems after they break.

Spreading out asset replacement costs over several years helps organizations determine when to expect high waves when most of their budget goes to upkeep and low waves when more of their budget will be available to pursue growth or improvements in security, availability and productivity.

Roadmapping makes it easier to capture and track an organization’s current initiatives along with its long-term or aspirational initiatives. While a budget allows an organization to outline its spending for the next five years, roadmapping considers additional limited resources like the time it takes to implement changes and the IT fatigue of your employees (how much IT change they can handle all at once).

Budgeting and roadmapping are not meant to be set-in-stone rules that must be followed to a T but more like a set of recommendations based on an organization’s current and future goals.

Because we take the time to do these things, it helps our clients feel like they aren’t being pushed into making purchases they aren’t ready to make.

“We never feel pressured by (HT) at all,” Graham said of replacing IT infrastructure. “Our other tech company (would often say), ‘Well, you need to replace this with this, and you need to do it now.'”

Graham noted that B&G’s interactions with HT have been positive, and she offered several adjectives to describe her experiences with her organization’s new MSP.

“Professional, polite, patient, personable, efficient, prompt,” she said.

“Just a delight to work with.”

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