Who will own your problem when the big boys get it wrong?
Business owners don’t just want their IT support company to intervene when there is a problem. They need someone to help manage their networks, plan budgets, contribute to IT strategies and then take ownership of the problem if things go wrong.
A recent telephone installation performed by Mustard IT demonstrates how, despite best laid plans, faults can occur for the unlikeliest of reasons. But these are the situations that ultimately reveal the true flexibility and commitment of your IT partner.
Cisco forgets to renew a domain name
We were asked to perform a software upgrade on a Cisco Call Manager Express. Our client wished to replace their Ark Express switchboard software with Cisco Unified Calling Communicator and Mustard engineers had planned everything to the letter.
So following a successful proof of concept, we attended site over a weekend to carry out the work. All rollback positions were in place, but we completed the installation without incident and the new switchboard software was fully operational by the following Monday morning, when we handed this new solution back to the customer.
But two weeks later, the switchboard suddenly stopped working. After performing all of the usual checks, our engineers started to go through larger and even more improbable hoops in an attempt to home in on the problem.
Unbelievably, the problem transpired to be that a domain name, which was crucial to the operation of this Cisco system, had not been renewed.
Going the extra mile
A company like Cisco is always on the acquisition trail and it seems that its Unified Calling Communicator product had been purchased from a company whose domain name and DNS needed to be live in order for the software to function. A bizarre administrative oversight had allowed this critical domain name to expire.
In these situations, it’s easy to take a step back and pass responsibility to a third party but Mustard engineers continued to spend hours cajoling Cisco by telephone. The networking giant was slow to react to this issue even after we had diagnosed the problem and brought it to their attention. In fact, it wasn’t until we threated to register this domain name (callconnect.com) in our own name, that they finally moved to re-register it and configure the DNS.
Mustard clients have become accustomed to our engineers going the extra mile to manage and support their IT and telephony systems. If you are an SME business in London, unhappy with the dedication being shown by your current partner, please call us on 020 3792 6994 for a friendly chat.
