thomastech is a data center lifecycle solutions provider that offers hardware solutions for financial, insurance, government, telecommunication, and other organizations. Along with the hardware, they also provide helpdesk, onsite support, and ITAD services. The company currently serves over 2500 customers across 15 countries.

With a focus on providing seamless IT performance and removing the stress of enterprise hardware continuity, thomastech has been recognized as an entrepreneurial leader and innovator by Inc. 5000 for the past three years.

Moving towards automation and efficiency with EZOfficeInventory

As the company was going through a period of rapid growth and was adding new data centers and warehouses, they needed a system to efficiently track their increasing number of servers and associated hardware. Manual tracking via spreadsheets was not an efficient or scalable solution.

During the search for a solution, EZOfficeInventory was recommended by Zendesk, a trusted business partner. Michael Hill, Senior Technical Manager at thomastech, did extensive testing to determine if EZOfficeInventory was the right software to help them scale their global business. He found that the powerful functionality and customization capabilities were exactly what thomastech needed to manage their growing inventory.

The seamless integration between Zendesk and EZOfficeInventory was another key motivating factor because thomastech was already using Zendesk as their primary platform for service ticket management.

Today, thomastech is tracking over 12000 items with EZOfficeInventory. From enhanced customer support to sales enablement, Michael discusses how EZOfficeInventory has helped thomastech improve daily operations.

Fast, efficient ticket resolution with Zendesk-EZOfficeInventory

thomastech uses EZOfficeInventory to track their servers and linked hardware. The servers are added to the system as individual items with a unique identification number. Associated information such as the contracts and service level agreements (SLA) are added to the system as well. The information exists on a cloud-based centralized platform where anyone can instantly access it from anywhere. This visibility and access has been a game changer for thomastech.

Previously, when thomastech engineers received a ticket on Zendesk, they had to check through thousands of records to find the referenced piece of equipment and verify if it was under an active contract. Then they had to track down the associated contract and SLA (in a separate spreadsheet) to resolve the ticket.

Now they can view all the required information in one window via an EZOfficeInventory pane that opens within the Zendesk ticket. The unique identification number makes it easy to instantly access the specific item from EZOfficeInventory along with it’s contract and SLA.

With all the required information available in the same window, ticket resolution is quick and efficient. This also reduces chances of errors since the engineers no longer have to manually track down and verify information across multiple paper-based databases. According to Michael, this automation has significantly increased staff efficiency and ticket response time.

Efficient inventory management and stock maintenance

Along with larger pieces of equipment, it is crucial for thomastech to accurately track smaller inventory items. While a server may exist at a site for a decade, smaller components inside the server have a much shorter lifespan. As these components age, they may not stay very reliable, so engineers in the field are replacing them on a weekly, monthly, or on-demand basis.

The logistics department at thomastech is responsible for maintaining optimal stock levels of small inventory items so they can be replaced quickly. They use the stocking alerts and notifications to stay informed and streamline their procurement.

“I feel like we have very good control over our inventory, stocking levels and the complete logical layout of all these components that are spread over the globe now,” explains Michael.

Optimizing the system to support unique workflows

According to Michael, one of the biggest benefits of EZOfficeInventory are the extensive customization options. thomastech has used these to their advantage and fully tailored the system to suit their needs. For example, they use the calendar events on the dashboard to track the expiration dates of their contracts. They also use the Alerts capability to receive 30 and 60 days notifications for expirations.

Accurate tracking of contracts is a crucial part of their everyday business operations. This is why they have appointed a dedicated resource to monitor EZOfficeInventory alerts and upcoming events.

Not only does EZOfficeInventory support internal operations, but it is also used to facilitate customers. thomastech allows customers to access EZOfficeInventory so they can view information relevant to them. For example, they can view a dashboard with the location of their server(s) pinned to a map.

Hovering over the pin pulls up more information such as their contract and SLA. According to Michael, the customers appreciate the transparency of the process and this also gives them the opportunity to easily access their contracts and SLAs to resolve any issues or concerns in real-time

Here, thomastech uses custom roles to grant controlled access to ensure that customers can only view authorized information. Custom Roles were carefully set up in collaboration with the EZOfficeInventory team so as to avoid any compliance issues or information security breaches.

Enhanced customer support – winning with EZOfficeInventory

Since the EZOfficeInventory implementation, thomastech has seen a significant improvement in customer service. The ability to verify information at a glance and determine the status of an asset has increased first response rates.

EZOfficeInventory has also helped them improve their sales numbers. As part of their sales presentation, thomastech shows their customers a populated EZOfficeInventory demo account featuring a small subset of sites spread across the United States.

The visual representation of the servers housed across multiple sites on a map are a compelling selling point.

“Everybody likes EZOfficeInventory visualizations. Our customers and different business groups really like it,” says Michael. The feedback on demo presentations has been very positive and it helps us win more business

These are especially significant wins for a customer centric company like thomastech. Michael concludes that the real time visibility and transparency offered by EZOfficeInventory has been extremely beneficial for their global team and will continue to be a valuable tool as they grow and scale the business.