It’s not easy to change the way you’ve been doing things for years. Even when the process is not a great one, familiarity offers a sense of control and comfort. As an MSP, however, it’s our mission to offer our customers tools that will optimize their workflow and output. Oftentimes, a customer’s habits and our mission are at odds. This was the case with one of our customers.
Growing Pains
Our customer had created an infrastructure that worked well for them for a time, but the time had come to level up. Their in-house email server was starting to fail and their back up system was not reliable. We were encouraging them to implement cloud solutions which would eliminate a lot of the lag time and bounced emails they often had trouble with. We were also highlighting the benefits of using an industry-specific software that would streamline the way they handled billing, case files and backups. A full cloud migration was the best move.
Creating a Roadmap
At first, they were reluctant to update anything. Their system had been working for a while, and they had gotten used to working around the things that often broke down. Negotiations on the subject were long. What tipped the scales, however, was the introduction of a migration roadmap. This roadmap spelled out the order of operations in terms of what data would be migrated and when. Having the roadmap helped our customer understand exactly what the cloud migration would look like and how long it would take. Once the roadmap was finalized, we began the actual migration. The process itself took a week. During that time, there was never any service interruption or downtime, and no data was lost.
CLIO
The Office 365 migration was not the only cloud migration that took place. Their case management software was also in need of an overhaul. We recommended that they go from the current software they were using to CLIO. CLIO is a cloud-based case management software with top ratings according to a host of independent reviews. Again, it took a little convincing, but once the process got started it was smooth sailing.
Education and Training
The last step of the migrations was educating our customer on how to use the tools they now had. Our senior technician sat with their team and explained how to use their new case management software effectively. He also trained them to use the tools in the Microsoft office suite that they would most need and benefit from. It took them a little time to get comfortable in the new environment. They eventually got the hang of it, and now it’s second nature to them.
Conclusion
We always want the safest, cutting edge tools for our customers. We want them to use the best tools so that they get the best results. If you and your office are looking to move to the cloud or optimize your current IT environment, give us a call. We can walk you through what a cloud migration would look like and create a roadmap that suits your needs.