Taking a vacation away from the IT business

[Product Team]

Seems I have not seen the inside of an airplane for years! I really want to be able to take two weeks away from the office and not be on the phone all the time. How do I manage to take a break from the office and the endless support calls? (received from a RangerMSP user)

Post your comments..

[smelvin]

Thats actually a bigger question than I think you realise.

I assume your a one-man-band and you are the only contact for your customers. If so here is my advice...

Short-Term
Assuming your customers are happy, I would inform them with plenty of notice about your upcoming holiday. I would (if your not already) employ an answering service to handle calls while your away, and obviously only very critical calls are then forwarded to you. Try and partner up with another one-man-band to cover for you while your away, and you can offer to do the same for him/her.

Long-Term
Think about your business and if this is a goal (i.e. more holidays) you need to put in place a plan to achieve this. The analogy I would use is a SatNav! When you use a SatNav you have to put an address in for it to work. It can then work out the route you need to take. Your business is no different, work out where you need it to be and then plan the route you will take to achieve this. Very simple analogy, but sometimes we all need a smack in the head of the blindingly obvious, I do anyway.

Hopefully that helps.

Scott

[jtfinley]

Definitely inform your customers if you're a 1-man shop and form a relationship with someone in a similar business. Obviously have a legal document in place so they cannot solicit your customer, but reciprocate.

[natrat]

You absolutely, positively have to have a backup person to handle your customers critical issues. I've been through this a couple of times now. Form a relationship with another small firm or one man band - people in the IT industry are too afraid to partner with people in their same business for terror of losing a customer. My philosophy on that is if your customer goes to somebody else just because your backup guy turned up instead of you then you are not doing a good enough job for your customers and not managing your relationship with them very well. Its not the other IT persons fault, its yours. My customers are loyal and I can send whoever I like in with no fear that they will be poached, even if the tech actively tried to get them to come.

so the real issue is finding someone you can trust. Before I went away I sent a couple of guys out on jobs that came in to me so I could see how they went well before I went away. Grilled the customers for feedback, checked their work etc. This is the only way to get an idea of whether they ar going to be able to cut it while you are away. But nobody will ever do as good a job as you (doesnt matter who you are, we all think that) so you need to be ok with that.

To help your guy you need great documentation of your regular customers as well, so they know what they are going into before they get there. This is key to your customer feeling confident that this stranger in their business is going to be ok.

And even if you do find a fantastic guy, the poo can still hit the fan. A server crash from your biggest client the day after you leave on holiday probably isn't going to end all that well no matter what happens.

I'm working on my real solution - expand the business to such a level that i am employing multiple techs and a manager and I step back from the operational aspect entirely. I'll get back to you in a few years :)

n

[cforger]

Ah yes - My bane as well. It's been nearly three years since I had a vacation! I've employed the trusted industry contact method, and it does work for emergencies, but the problem is - when you're small you are probably doing so much work, and retaining so much customer info in your head, that any hand-off will be poor.

I'm working on getting a second network tech running again - You need your org to be around 2-3 techs to handle vacations and crisis situations.. it's tricky to get up to that size (you need to bill well), but once you do, you have a real business as opposed to doing all the work yourself.

I like natrat's idea - That's the same goal for all of us.

[nattivillin]

When i was a 1 man band, i just didnt take any vacation. Now i have multiple backup employees and can get away for a week or three. My issue isnt the support calls, but actually running the company. I have techs, no real managers. Still working on that part. My vacation usually entails a remote desktop connection twice a week to check on parts, inventory, special orders, payroll, taxes, etc.

[ebuhrendorf]

I went to Amsterdam last week and now I'm in Florida! Get a cheap Help Desk 3 guy to run the shop.