Meet Systemagic

A booming company with 19 staff members and a strong customer referral network sounds like a dream! For UK-based IT support company Systemagic, it’s a reality, but it didn’t happen overnight. What began as a tech support, web design and SEO company grew into a full IT solutions business offering cloud services and migration, patch management, network management, backups, VOIP, remote support, and additional IT support. They support small and medium-sized companies (5-500 employees) that range from hotels and colleges to construction organizations and film production studios.

IT Technicians or sales superheroes?

Systemagic’s Marketing & Comms Manager Danny Purnell and IT Technician Adam Beer confirm that the company’s tagline of Doing IT Differently is well executed in the day-to-day: they offer rolling contracts for their services as opposed to industry-standard long-term ones in order to make sure their clients are fully satisfied. Additionally, to make life easier for their clients, the IT desk steers clear of using jargon and industry-specific tech terms.

The main pillar of Systemagic’s customer service is found in the unique company structure: they don’t have a sales or account management team! Instead, the IT Technicians and Apprentices at the IT desk serve as the only customer-facing role. The technicians explore the potential client’s challenges, build unique solutions, and help implement and maintain them. With a strong focus on customer service, everyone on Systemagic’s helpdesk has received customer service training. The average Systemagic technician stays with the company for over 6 years (as opposed the industry average of 18 months), so their customers always know who’s at the other end of the line. The technicians do not try to upsell products but rather listen and offer solutions that will truly help the client’s overall needs.

Because of this innovative approach, Systemagic is often referred to by its happy customers and has a competitive proposition when it comes to marketing. This also helps them reduce overhead costs, contributing to their lean pricing. However, in order to sustain such a high level of customer service while keeping their prices competitive, the company needed to speed up the manual processes while keeping a low headcount.

The long and winding road toward an IT management solution

Finding the right solution on all fronts – features, pricing, service, etc. – takes time, a lesson that IT Technician Adam Beer learned the hard way. When he joined the company seven years ago, Systemagic used an IT management platform, but they weren’t happy with it. “By the time I fully got up-to-speed with it we moved over to another platform. The main reason we did that was for cost,” he said.

Adam, along with a few fellow technicians, tried another solution – this new company offered a free product that solved all of their needs in the hopes that they would purchase their additional anti-virus and cloud software. “They offered something a little too good to be true. They changed their minds and wanted to charge us an exploitative price.”

Being a small IT company with competitive prices, Systemagic needed a cost-effective platform that could still do the job. Eventually, they found exactly what they were looking for.

The signs point to Atera

Danny and Adam admit that the company was initially interested in Atera because of its cost-effectiveness and transparent pricing – Atera charges per technician instead of per computer or user. “From there, we discovered the bonuses,” Adam said brightly.

Easy Onboarding

“We leaned on the knowledge base quite heavily to take it on board, and we didn’t need to do any training for it. We relied on the knowledge base but mostly just jumped into it to see how it was on just a couple of our machines, to begin with. Once we were quite happy with it. We went fully into it straight away,” Adam relayed.

Not only did the company get onboarded fast, but Systemagic can also now onboard new technicians and apprentices in hours: “Things like that can all be handled in less than an afternoon.”

Reducing Manual Work

Previously, when Systemagic onboarded a new client, they’d spend hours installing all the necessary software, protocols, and anti-virus on as many machines as necessary.

With great software comes great updates. Whether for new features or enhanced security, this software needs to be patched (updated). If every computer has multiple software that needs patching several times a month…IT technicians can be found in a time-suck. They could be fixing more urgent problems and servicing more clients.

“Before Atera, we had basic kind of patching capabilities, but it was never as robust, so it couldn’t really be trusted. Now we can push out patches, scripts, and programs without thinking about it. It makes it easier when onboarding new clients, and their machines have 40-50 patches to do. That’s gonna further reduce our setup time for new computers.”

Proactivity

Because of Atera, fixing an issue before it becomes a client’s problem is now easy. The technicians see the functionality of the software and hardware they supply, and take action fast when they see a slowdown or bug.

“We’re able to keep a closer eye on how the service of being used in terms of the CPU and Ram usage, which is good because we were never able to do that before, so we could see if something was being absolutely hammered, and then we can look at it before it becomes a problem.

Exceeding KPIs

Systemagic measures its success via customer satisfaction. Their main KPIs include response time, fix time, and customer reviews. As aforementioned, they remain at a 99% satisfaction rate.

“Being able to have technicians drop in immediately into a customer’s computer and work on something certainly has contributed to our speed and time. Last week, our average response time was twenty-five minutes or less. Our average fixed time is under ninety minutes at the moment. So yes, we’re doing pretty well in terms of our KPIs.”

Relief provided by Customer Service

Adam had not only feature promises fulfilled by Atera but also the ability to request new features from Atera via a requests board. There, he can ask for anything he needs, and sees the progress in real-time.

 “All the other companies that we’ve been with did not have a Requests Board. I’ve put in a few myself that are being considered. Other customers of yours also have, I’ve put my votes in, and I’ve seen them come to fruition. It’s really good to be able to add something, even if it’s just a little request, and then, a few months later, to have that actually implemented. It’s nice to be heard.”

A peek into the future

In a company-wide initiative, Systemagic plans to expand Atera to other areas of the organization. Their next step is to move their help desk ticketing platform to Atera. “You know customers that enjoy the solution, and we really like to partner with you,” said Danny.

Managing Director of Systemagic, James Eades, added: “We are fortunate to be a company built on solid values, a strong culture and truly great people – something we’ve focused on for 23 years and counting. What the team has achieved in the last two decades is simply phenomenal, and I’m excited to see what the next two decades have in store for us.”