The Big Switch is a book that draws parallels between the electrification of North America and today’s cloud computing trends. Read it. It is way better than it sounds and that is not because I am a half-geek. It examines the potential impact on employment, privacy, social structures and politics and implies that George Orwell might not have been too far off. Absolutely fascinating and deeply concerning, “The Big Switch” impacted both my professional and personal perspectives. I recommend it wholeheartedly and if you promise to send me your thoughts, I’ll send you a copy. Just contact us with a General Inquiry, reference this letter, and provide your shipping information.
Quartet’s Big Switch is from egalitarian to tiered customer service. We recognize our deep relationships with some companies and are enhancing our services to them. In fact, we’re formalizing what we’ve been moving towards for years now – different service levels for different customers. This is what it means. Customers of our basic services will see minimal change. Our prices will decline steadily as our efficiencies increase and we will introduce new communication tools.
These tools include better customer satisfaction surveys, regular email communication, seminars and a “customer advocate” who will deal with issues, questions and/or changes you wish to make to your account. Customers of our more integrated services will notice more significant changes. Each customer will have three Quartet staff assigned to them: a Customer Manager, a Technical Consultant and a Service Representative. On a quarterly basis, a formal report will be presented detailing service activity, progress on known issues, technical budgets and service change previews. We are formalizing the planning role and introducing change management services to ensure customers’ processes evolve with technical capabilities.
We lead standing technical committees for some customers and with others we integrate IT suppliers and industry regulators. The point is that our service breadth and depth are expanding far beyond technical support. Some of our customer relationships are verging on partnerships. We consult with them before making Quartet investments and in a couple of cases, we’ve made joint investments. We share in each others’ future and our services reflect that.
“The Big Switch” forecasts a major change in the nature of technical services, with more emphasis on adapting, integrating and filtering knowledge. Quartet’s Big Switch is directly in line with that. I hope you share our excitement for the future and I encourage you to look towards new possibilities as you plan efficiencies into your organization.
Regards,
Rob Bracey