The IT Guy Concept

Computers, Telephones, TCP/IP, VoIP, RAID, CPUs, Hard Disks. IT is a minefield of acronyms and tech-speak. Not only that, technology changes on a daily basis. What is up to date today might be old hat in a few months time. It's a struggle for the professionals to keep up with, so why would we expect our customer's to?

Our "IT Guy" concept is born from this quagmire. Our goal is to support our client's use of technology to improve their business. To do this we have to focus on two core issues. Firstly translating tech-speak to relevant and simple English and proactively monitoring our client's businesses and searching for ways in which IT can help them. Secondly we aim to deliver high a quality IT support service, and not just the type of impersonal service you get from your bank or the electricity company, a personal level of service where the client can really feel wanted.

Our IT Guys understand our client's businesses and take an active interest in it. Their interest is not limited to the hours in which they work for the client, but they will be discussing their ideas and thoughts when they are back in the office with their colleagues. We encourage the guys to work together and help our clients by linking their bonuses to client satisfaction. We know that if their interests are the same as our client's interests then everyone will be a winner.

We are vendor independent; we have freedom to choose from any technology arena, and client's can buy from us or another supplier. We need to emphasise that independence as best we can. What we want is the client to get a solution that is best for them, no-one else. Of course, it makes our life easier when we provide a product or service, but many of our clients choose to buy direct from hardware manufacturers or other 3rd parties and we support them every step of the way.

In 2011 we started to search for a way to communicate this concept to our clients, and we decided to create a completely new website.

With years of experience in IT Support we are used to communicating technology to clients. I had a broad understanding from the start on how we wanted to present the website and what content it would create. The challenge for me was finding the expertise I needed to assist with the design and marketing. Fortunately we knew people in the industry and managed to build a great team to get the project started.”

Justin's concept is straight forward enough, but it involved putting a great deal of information on line, and my challenge was to present it in a cool crisp and easy to read format. The web site visitor could at no point be overwhelmed with text, or complex words, or techno babble. That was a challenge. If you look at some of HTL's competitors you can clearly see how other IT companies struggle. We quickly decided to put key information in a graphical form on the home page. If you look at the front page of the HTL website you can see almost instantly, what the company does, how well they do it and how much it costs. If you want more detail, or course it is all there and easy to find.”

This was a real challenge. HTL might be an established name amongst their client base, but not necessarily in the market place. My task was to promote the website to the target market.  In order to do this Seros worked very closely with the web design team to ensure on site code optimisation.  Additionally we had to provide detailed research in order to understand what search terms we should aim for, and brief HTL on how to make the content engaging and unique. We originally targeted Google Organic Search, Google Places and Google Adwords.  Google is looking for something special these days. If you can provide a website that is both entertaining, informative and unique you will do well. We also brought attention to HTL how important it is to work with Social Media, and kick started their presence on Facebook, Twitter and Google +1 .Its been a lot of hard work, but I'm very happy with the results so far.  There is lots more to do, we have a long term strategy  with HTL and I'm looking forward to the ongoing development of the website.”

Central to all this was our &"IT guy" himself and his pal "Robby the Robot". On the home page we could have built a long list of bullet points to explain what we do, but we know that people have better things to do with their time. We decided we wanted a quirky animation. Our "IT guy" himself could introduce the services to our clients - in a fun way. Additionally the IT Guy is present throughout the site, providing top tips, or translations of techie speak into his brand of English. In essence he is doing his real world job. Where a visitor sees the IT Guy on a page, they will get an honest opinion – even if it means criticising our suppliers (no apologies here).

Importantly we didn't want to provide the real technical nitty-gritty on the site, we can leave that to our IT Guys technical training or to the comms room coffee chat, but if a visitor does want to find out more they can see Robby the Robot on each page. He is there pointing them in the direction of further more detailed resources. We contracted three design companies to produce a mock-up before choosing the best one to move forward.”

We were approached by HTL with a design brief. We hadn't worked together before, but I really felt we understood what Justin was trying to achieve. Our task was to bring life to the IT Guy. He had to be friendly, trendy and intelligent. Just like the team in their office  ;-) . We created a fun animation for the home page of the website and the images to go throughout the site. Everything had to be perfect. It was a real challenge and involved several of our artists and design teams, but we are pleased with the result and are continuing to work with HTL on a number of new projects.”

The website will continue to develop, but for now all the feedback we have received has been first rate. We are very happy with the work Ces, Richard and Gops have done for us. All three companies have done a great job. Our search engine position has improved and the enquiries are coming in.

More importantly for me is that our new image and new website have delivered something else. It is a declaration to the world of our attitude towards professionally and friendly IT Support. We showcase to everyone our professional abilities, our can-do attitude, and our commitment to personal service. Surprisingly for me, it's also had an unexpected effect. I have found that the new website and branding has given the whole team here at HTL a new sense of ambition and sense of pride. It really feels like we are all working towards a common goal – client satisfaction. That alone makes the whole project worth while.

Welcome to a new an improved HTL, we hope you enjoy the website. :-)”