Steve: A Day In The Life Of…An Account Manager

Meet Steve — one of our Senior Account Managers.

Steve has worked in managed IT services since the turn of the millennium and brings with him a huge amount of experience in guiding customers on their journey through the technology landscape. The office also wouldn’t be the same without Steve’s infectious positivity!

Away from his desk, Steve is a family man, golfer, singer, motorcyclist, and amateur zookeeper! Steve has two Black Russian Terriers (Kutya and Dutch) whose size must be seen to be believed, three Border Collies (Charlie, Lily and Taggart) and two rescue Lurchers (Bungle and Zippy). As if seven dogs weren’t enough, Steve also has four cats:  Parsley, Cookie (Tabbies), Mouse and Pepe (Black and White).

We’ve asked Steve to share a day in his life as a Senior Account Manager.

Give us a brief history of your time with Wessex IT, Steve!

I started working at Wessex IT on 20th November 2016, which was on my birthday! The company was at a transitional stage with Richard and Andrew being the only account managers at the time. With me joining, it released them to complete other tasks throughout the business, such as creating our hosted platform and designing the new website.

It was an exciting time to be joining the team, and ever since then, the company has been constantly growing and changing throughout the years. It is completely different now from how it was back then and all in just under 8 years! The staff here are fantastic and I find Wessex IT to be a wonderful place to work.

What do you do in your role, Steve?

As a Senior Account Manager, I act as a main point of contact for our customers and the conduit between them and our technical team. My role also consists of managing various tasks, projects, tickets, and issues within the business, as well as creating proposals and quotations to put forward to customers.

My relationships with the service desk and projects teams are paramount. They can action, help and provide answers, which in-turn keeps our customers well informed and satisfied.

Can your typical day change day by day, or do you have a routine that you stick to, Steve?

It is always nice to have a routine, but due to the nature of my job and IT as a whole, the day is constantly changing and you cannot always predict what you’re coming into — we are really kept on our toes here! I do have my own task list, but generally, my days work around it.

Some days, you are just swept off your feet and it can be full on. You can be side swiped by a brand-new problem or issue at a moment’s notice, and suddenly, that task can sometimes become the most important of all. Other days, you can continue working on the task list that you have set for yourself, but nothing is ever set in stone.

One reason why I love this job is its unpredictability and the fact that you don’t always know what to expect — you can come across something brand new every day. Whatever the day throws at you, you must be ready to go and be on high alert at all times — it can be quite exciting!

How do you prioritise and plan your workload for the day, Steve?

I prioritise my workload by judging how urgent each situation is. You always have to deal with the biggest problem first before moving onto the next, as that is going to resolve issues the most.

Sometimes, working with the technical team on certain issues that are impacting the customer can be the most important. I also book out time for larger tasks, such as proposals, but you do have to be flexible due to the nature of the role.

In what ways do you collaborate with your colleagues, Steve?

Within our business, every department works very closely with each other. I personally work closely with the support desk team to help get a turnaround in a timely manner.

The same goes for the projects team — Jon, Rob, Alex and Andy — the rest of the accounts team — Ian, Jordan and Ryan — and the rest of my colleagues in the office. We always collaborate, share and ask for each other’s opinions, and it’s always a very open discussion. There is no such thing as a silly question as we encourage growth in people’s knowledge and expertise.

What role does technology play in your daily tasks, Steve?

With us being a part of the Microsoft Partner Network, we heavily use Microsoft products all throughout our company. We primarily use Outlook for sending out information and quotes to customers, as well as receiving information; Teams as a more internal tool, using it for quick conversations to relay information and news regarding jobs.

Every supported endpoint and server has remote monitoring software to provide a comprehensive status and overview of each device, which can be found within our own system and portal. Using this portal, I am provided with a plethora of important information about our customers’ devices, which helps me in my day-to-day tasks.

We also utilise an important and useful sales tool called Autotask, which allows us to view and deal with all of our tickets, projects and quotes in one place, saving time and making our jobs much easier. Autotask can be seen as our primary cog, but with everything else working simultaneously around it.

Can you share an example of a challenging situation that you encountered recently and how you overcame it, Steve?

We recently had a situation, in which one of our customers had a technical issue and called us at 5:20pm on a Friday. They had no Wi-Fi powered into their retail area and were going to be busy over the weekend.

I told them to leave it with me, called our Projects Director, Jon, and explained the whole situation. We both attended the site within 30 minutes of the customer’s call ending, along with the required kit to fix the problem, fixing the problem within a couple of hours upon arrival.

We got a lot of satisfaction out of fixing the issue in such a timely manner, and the customer was very thankful too.

What has been your favourite job that you have ever completed at Wessex IT, Steve?

Providing The Steel Yard with a state-of-the-art Wi-Fi solution was one of my favourites. You can read in detail about how we got The Steel Yard’s Wi-Fi upgraded and back in good working order in our blog post!

After years of struggling with their existing Wi-Fi solution, The Steel Yard requested Wessex IT to provide their recommendations.

After a thorough site survey had been carried out by one of our experienced Service Desk Engineers, Kai, we created a heatmap to recommend where the APs would be best placed, as well as what the service cover and effectiveness of their new positions would be.

Working with their vendors, we scheduled and planned each step to make sure that the job could be brought to fruition in a suitable time frame. They are incredibly happy with the solution and the ongoing support that we provide, making the entire experience completely worth it.

There is a lot of satisfaction when we complete a job like this. They approached us with a problem, we made our recommendations, they went with our recommendations, and we fixed their problem. You can’t beat that.

Who is your biggest support at Wessex IT, Steve?

The entire Service Desk team — led by Josh and Ean — are the biggest support for me, as they make my job so much easier. My relationship with them is critical, in order to provide customers with the very best service and to keep them satisfied. Every member on the Service Desk has a can-do attitude and they are always eager and willing to help.

We all discuss problems together to get the most effective solutions, and I speak with them every day to get problems resolved — they are all truly invaluable.

What do you love most about your role, as well as Wessex IT as a whole, Steve?

The variation of the daily job and the satisfaction of helping customers are without a doubt the best parts.

It can be a bit of a rollercoaster at times with a mixture of successes and problems, but I do think that it’s a representation of you as a person when you go that extra mile to help a customer in need.

Everyone here is of the same mindset that they want to do the very best they can. When something’s not working, you want to get the issue fixed as efficiently and effectively as possible.

In terms of Wessex IT as a whole, it’s simply everyone being here in the business. Our directors — Richard and Andrew — give you the freedom to use your common sense to help make decisions and get on with the job.

As mentioned before, it can be an emotional rollercoaster at times, but everyone is always willing to help and bounce ideas off each other, making the job so much easier. The team is also always by your side, making the job an absolute joy.

Having a supportive and helpful team with a can-do attitude really does help a lot. I wouldn’t change my team for the world.

Find out more about Steve and the rest of our team in Meet The Team.