Milestone Has You Covered

The devil is in the details, or so the old saying goes — and that’s particularly true with IT service contracts. Service contracts must be effectively tracked and managed to minimize costs and risks and ensure that management can make informed budgeting and investment decisions. But tracking service contract renewals can be an added burden for busy IT shops supporting a vast array of equipment.

To help relieve this burden, Milestone provides customers with service contract renewal support for all of its manufacturer partners. Service Renewals Manager Shelley Pak keeps track of service contract expiration dates and advises customers when those contracts are set to expire. This valuable service helps customers ensure that service contracts are in place for critical equipment — no matter when or from whom it was purchased.

“When we sell the hardware, the service contract typically goes along with it. We make note of that specific support contract and manage the renewals. If we have a partnership with a specific manufacturer, we can pitch in and offer service contract renewal help at any time,” Pak said.

“Customers can reach out to their Milestone account executive or to me personally to arrange comprehensive service renewal support. I just need to know what they have in terms of support dates and serial numbers so I can pull together a quote for them. I can also help with large inventory lists that they need help validating serial numbers and contract renewal dates and consolidating renewals in a single, co-termination date.”

Relieving the Burden

Pak uses a customized system developed by Milestone to track customers’ service contracts. The system sends her reminders so that she can contact customers prior to the expiration date and offer them a quote for service contract renewal. This service gives customers peace of mind knowing that someone is keeping an eye on their service contract expirations and taking steps to ensure that they don’t lapse.

“I have never had anyone call my reminder a nuisance,” Pak said. “People appreciate the reminders and someone keeping track of expirations for them. With some manufacturers, support ends the moment the service contract expires. With others, the pain is not as immediate — but it’s definitely something customers want to stay on top of and make sure it’s active.”

Customers also prefer to have one knowledgeable vendor managing their service contract renewals. Given the plethora of appliances in the typical IT shop, attempting to manage service renewals through multiple vendors just causes headaches.

“We’re seeing more and more often that customers prefer a one-stop shop. It just makes life easier and less cluttered to have Milestone manage the services contracts for all of the manufacturers’ appliances we sell and support,” Pak said. “We can manage renewals on equipment we did not sell originally.”

Keeping It Simple

Most customers prefer one-year service contracts, but Milestone can help with multi-year contracts as well. Milestone can also consolidate service renewals for technology assets on a single date or a series of quarterly dates, regardless of when they were purchased, to make budgeting easier.

“We do a lot with co-terming service contracts for multiple appliances. Typically, we do this within the one manufacturer but we can also work with customers to have one established date for service renewals across product lines,” said Pak. “If the customers has two or three different lines of hardware and they want to have everything expire on June 30, I can work with all three manufacturers to try and make that happen for them.”

Milestone Systems also facilitates budgeting and planning by helping customers determine whether to renew support contracts or invest in new assets. Milestone works very closely with its manufacturer partners, and is aware of new initiatives or offers related to end-of-life equipment.

“If I know that the manufacturer is making a specific initiative to refresh or update a certain level of equipment, we can help the customer take a look at that, whenever the service contract comes due for renewal,” Pak said.

Ongoing maintenance and support is critical for today’s complex IT infrastructure. Yet few organizations have the resources they need to gain maximum value from their support contracts. Call 866-646-9211 to discuss how Milestone can help you better manage those devilish support contract details.