What is User-Friendly IT™?

User-friendly IT is a spiffy marketing phrase, to be sure. But it's actually much more. It is the rallying cry of a company that that is out to kill IT that's complicated, secretive, and smug. User-friendly IT is a mission, a plan, and a process.

Honestly. You can do better than traditional IT.

Here's what we hate about traditional IT, and what we do instead to make it user-friendly:

Sales

Ugh. Sales. IT sales might be the worst of all. Complicated and secretive. Full of jargon. We make it user-friendly instead. It works like this:

1. You read up and realize Ripple might be a fit…

2. We contact you, answer any initial questions you have, and set up a meeting.

3. We meet in person. We find out about your company and your network, how you're using the systems you currently have, where your challenges are. We tell you about Ripple. We discuss - together - how a relationship might work.

4. If you like, we send you a formal quote.

“But surely,” you may say, “there will be myriad roadblocks like blue-sky prices that have to be negotiated, ‘trial closes,’ and pressure tactics.” Happily, no there won't. Because that wouldn’t be user-friendly. That's also why we have no long-term contracts, and our plans and pricing are upfront.

Changing IT providers.

When a company switches IT providers, often the scariest part is the actual changing. "Better the devil you know" is powerful in the world of IT. Well, it used to be. We set out to fix this too.

1. You get an IT Strategist. Your IT Strategist is going to ask a lot of questions. Do a lot of digging. Your IT Strategist lays the groundwork for our future together, and for the success of our Service Team.

2. We prepare Network Overviews. These are the documents that let us know exactly how things work at your company. They are the documents that your Service Team trains with before they start supporting your company. Then the network overviews serve as the basis for...

3. The Business Review. When we start working with you, we do a full business review. It's basically a detailed roadmap for where your business stands from an IT perspective, and where it’s going. This is how IT starts to become strategic, rather than merely reactive.

4. The kick-off. After we learn your network, get our backup system in place, and get trained...then we get started supporting you. We come out, meet your staff, explain how to get support, take a few pictures. The coffee is on us.

Service

This is pretty much where the user-friendly rubber hits the road.

Your Service Team is made up of Service Engineers that have been Certified User-Friendly™. Note that these are Engineers - not "Customer Service Reps." You see, Customer Service Rep - in the IT world - means "people that don't know squat and are tasked with keeping you from talking to an engineer." We hate that. So should you.

How a service call looks at Ripple:

1. You call or email or submit a case through the web ( however you want to contact us).

2. A real person answers the phone (sorry, puzzle-lovers, no voice tree here), or- if you emailed us - emails you back.

3. We get the information we need and work with you to resolve the issue.

4. We keep it easy and friendly.

All the other IT hurdles? Well, those aren't really things you want to deal with, are they? That's what we're here for.

Moving on

Well, drat. Sometimes companies part ways. And you know what? IT companies usually make that part suck. We decided not to. How to move on...

1. No long term contract. 30 days notice and we can part ways.

2. During those 30 days, we work with whomever you like to help with the transition.

3. We document and prepare final transition documents with all the information you’ll need to move on.

4. We stay friends.