UK Decision Makers Unsatisfied with IT Vendor Service

Customer service is king for IT decision-makers in the UK when it comes to the key checklist of what they look for in an IT vendor, according to the 2018 Powering Potential Study by Cogeco Peer 1.

85% believe that their organization’s most prominent current IT vendor can improve its service

The vast majority of respondents (85%) believe that their organization’s most prominent current IT vendor can improve its service, with only 14% stating that they are satisfied with the current service they receive.

Furthermore, over 7 in 10 respondents stated that cost (75%) or service (71%) are in their top three factors that matter the most to their organization when looking for an IT vendor, with around a quarter (22%) saying that service is the most important factor.

The study, which surveyed 150 IT decision-makers in the UK across several different industries including financial services, retail, higher education, business services and media, looked into the real value of service and found that when it comes to pricing, businesses are not necessarily looking for those providers willing to engage in a race to the bottom. Although price does remain the main concern, and with budgets tightening, businesses are increasingly recognizing the need for strong scalability capability, to cope with the peaks and troughs they experience.

Susan Bowen, VP and General Manager, EMEA at Cogeco Peer 1 said: “Good customer service has often been overlooked in favor of competitive pricing and exciting new products in the IT market, but more and more businesses are finding the service they receive isn’t living up to their expectations or needs, as they grow. Having dedicated technical account managers, fast-turnaround on enquiries and 24/7 support can make more of a difference to their bottom line than the expertise the vendor brings or product flexibility, in a service outage or data breach situation, for instance.”

Almost all (95%) believe their IT vendor could improve in some aspect, with over half (54%) stating that their IT vendor’s service is one of the most pressing things they could improve.


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UK Decision Makers Unsatisfied with IT Vendor Service

Customer service is king for IT decision-makers in the UK when it comes to the key checklist of what they look for in an IT vendor, according to the 2018 Powering Potential Study by Cogeco Peer 1.

85% believe that their organization’s most prominent current IT vendor can improve its service

The vast majority of respondents (85%) believe that their organization’s most prominent current IT vendor can improve its service, with only 14% stating that they are satisfied with the current service they receive.

Furthermore, over 7 in 10 respondents stated that cost (75%) or service (71%) are in their top three factors that matter the most to their organization when looking for an IT vendor, with around a quarter (22%) saying that service is the most important factor.

The study, which surveyed 150 IT decision-makers in the UK across several different industries including financial services, retail, higher education, business services and media, looked into the real value of service and found that when it comes to pricing, businesses are not necessarily looking for those providers willing to engage in a race to the bottom. Although price does remain the main concern, and with budgets tightening, businesses are increasingly recognizing the need for strong scalability capability, to cope with the peaks and troughs they experience.

Susan Bowen, VP and General Manager, EMEA at Cogeco Peer 1 said: “Good customer service has often been overlooked in favor of competitive pricing and exciting new products in the IT market, but more and more businesses are finding the service they receive isn’t living up to their expectations or needs, as they grow. Having dedicated technical account managers, fast-turnaround on enquiries and 24/7 support can make more of a difference to their bottom line than the expertise the vendor brings or product flexibility, in a service outage or data breach situation, for instance.”

Almost all (95%) believe their IT vendor could improve in some aspect, with over half (54%) stating that their IT vendor’s service is one of the most pressing things they could improve.


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The Great SaaS Hangover (and the Cure Nobody Is Talking About)

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

OpenShift Monitoring: 5 Things You Need to Keep an Eye on

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

AI Drives New Wave of Digital Transformation

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Data Center Outage Frequency Decreasing

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...

6 Takeaways from the State of Observability for Media and Entertainment

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Simplifying Actionable Problem-Solving with Decision Optimization

Regardless of their scale, business decisions often take time, effort, and a lot of back-and-forth discussion to reach any sort of actionable conclusion ... Any means of streamlining this process and getting from complex problems to optimal solutions more efficiently and reliably is key. How can organizations optimize their decision-making to save time and reduce excess effort from those involved? ...

Cloud Cost Crisis: As Semiconductor Tariffs Loom, CIOs Face Budget Overruns

As enterprises accelerate their cloud adoption strategies, CIOs are routinely exceeding their cloud budgets — a concern that's about to face additional pressure from an unexpected direction: uncertainty over semiconductor tariffs. The CIO Cloud Trends Survey & Report from Azul reveals the extent continued cloud investment despite cost overruns, and how organizations are attempting to bring spending under control ...

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The Results Are In: IT Professionals Want More AI and Automation Support

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

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