For some businesses, seeking tech support means crossing some sort of language barrier. The IT department is its own nation-state: speaking in code, cables spilling from cupboards. Without the base knowledge and vocabulary required to speak to tech support, it can be difficult for colleagues from other departments to articulate technical issues, and make sure the solution they're getting is going to be effective.

For some businesses, seeking tech support means crossing some sort of language barrier. The IT department is its own nation-state: speaking in code, cables spilling from cupboards. Without the base knowledge and vocabulary required to speak to tech support, it can be difficult for colleagues from other departments to articulate technical issues, and make sure the solution they're getting is going to be effective.

When client and tech service provider can't communicate, nobody wins. There needs to be some sort of middle ground so things don't get lost in translation.

At National Technologies we have strategies for actively talking to our clients, so we don't get swallowed up by the IT bubble and forget about our customer experiences. As what is essentially an outsourced IT department, we make an effort to speak the language of our clients. We understand that it's our responsibility to communicate effectively, not the responsibility of our clients to learn our technical vocabulary and acronymns. We train our engineers to speak in ways everyone can understand.

We want our clients to know what's going on, so they can make sure we're doing it right. Complete transparency means clients can tell us what they think, and we can do our job better. This means occasionally stepping out from behind an email signature.

Managed Services Providers need to develop strategies for keeping their clients informed, without using alienating rhetoric. Businesses should look for IT support teams that are willing to leave the comfort of the support desk to talk to the people who need their help.

Quite generally, don't have a tech support team that looks like this one:

If you feel like your current IT support team speaks a foreign language, talk to us at NTG. We do IT, but we do it in a language you understand.