A Customer’s Experience with PCG and Why You Should Choose Us

Summary: Moving a company isn’t easy, and PCG IT can help ensure the IT side is set up fast. Hear from a satisfied PCG IT client who discusses his company’s move and the challenges they faced. Listen or read more to understand what it’s like to work with PCG IT.

Mike:  It is Tech Tuesday. We’re all powered today here on WTSM by Portsmouth Computer Group with convenient locations in Portsmouth and Dover. Now open in Manchester and Portland, Maine. Check them out. PCGIT.com. That’s PCGIT for world class IT service and customer support.

Our good friend Dave Hodgdon joins us this morning. Good to have you with us. Welcome.

Dave Hodgdon: Good morning. How about them Sox?

Mike:  How about them Sox? It’s like . . .

Dave: Oh, they still got time. They still got time.

Mike:  Oh, I love it. You Red Sox fan. They still got time. They still have time.

Dave: You were talking about the weather last night. I took my dog for a walk. It was just one [crosstalk] of the most spectacular nights on the beach. It was beautiful.

Mike:  But even Saturday, I was at a function at Ultim Bay Saturday night, right on the water, and I was playing some music for a wedding and after a while the women got out of their gowns, and they were putting jean jackets on, because it was a little cool. The feel of fall was in the air. I didn’t want to hear that. The feel fall. It’s the second week of August. I know. So how are things with the Portsmouth Computer Group?

Dave: Things are great. Having a busy summer, which is nice. We’re having fun with that Windows 7 end-of-life. But today we thought we’d change up a little bit and talk about a customer experience with one of our wonderful clients.

Mike:  And it’s a Bob Chafey from Extended Family. Good to have you with us, Bob. Welcome.

Bob Chafey: Thank you for having me.

Mike:  Good to have you on the program this morning. So, Obama’s one of your clients, correct?

Dave: Yes, he has. We met him about four years ago. I let Bob introduce himself and what his company does in the community.

What a PCG IT Client Has to Say

Mike:  So, let’s talk about what Extended Family does, Bob.

Bob:   Extended Family was started about 15 years ago by Barbara Trimble and she was working in the healthcare industry for many, many years and doing some consulting in the nursing home industry when she decided that there were many people there that would be better off at home.

They were quite capable of living at home with the proper plan and proper services. So she started Extended Family in 2004 and since then we’ve been providing home care services to older adults from the New Hampshire border up to Southern Maine and West into about the Raymond area.

Mike:  And where are you situated out of? Is there a home base for this extended care?

Bob:   The office is in Portsmouth.

Dave: Extended Family’s in Portsmouth.

Bob:   One Green Leaf Roads in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Dave: We just did a major move, which is one of the things we want to talk about. Yeah, big move.

Mike:  So, you have chosen Portsmouth Computer Group for your IT services. How long have you been involved with PCG?

Bob:   It’s almost four years. I think. We were struggling with our previous vendor. We had been moved to the cloud and that move didn’t work out well. We were experiencing unacceptable downtime. We provide home care services for older adults. A lot of critical calls we have to be prepared to take. And if our system goes down then we could have some problems with our clients.

So, between the downtime and the expense associated with that, we started looking for an alternative and about four years ago I found PCG.

Mike:  How did you find Dave and the crew? Were you recommended to them or did you find them online or . . . ?

Bob:   I think I found them online and the reviews were quite good and I brought Dave in and he confirmed why they were good.

Mike:  When you read the reviews and looked at what they were able to provide you for this service, for your IT stuff, what led you to sort of make the decision to go with them? Any one particular thing in particular?

Bob:   I think there was a commitment to customer service and just a different approach. He was explaining things in ways [crosstalk] that were easy to understand.

Mike:  That you could understand.

Bob:   And everybody we’ve met since then associated with PCG has come with that same attitude.

Mike:  Yeah. I’ve always admired that about you too because I know in your business you have your own little language and your own jargon, like we do in the broadcast business. But to explain to people who have no idea what you’re talking about, you have to bring it down. It’s not the dumbing down of people, it’s just that you have to explain it in terms that they can understand and use every day.

PCG IT’s Approach to Troubleshooting Issues

Dave: About a 100% of what we’re technical speaking about, the person can only understand about 20% of it. So, you really have to water it down and make it like you always hear me when I’m explaining something, I try to give a scenario why it might make a difference right there.

But, when we first met Bob, we heard the pain and like anything, there’s many ways to build your house. And we gave him some options. We went over those. And it’s hard when you make the commitment to the cloud and it doesn’t work because there’s a lot of good things about the cloud, Mike. It just didn’t happen to work for Bob and Extended Family, but we came up with a scenario. We were able to solve his needs to stay up. We were able to solve his security and the big thing for them is the remote access where his staff and the nurses need remote access.

Mike:  So, the business actually moved and you were part of that movement?

Dave: I was a big part of the move that I’ll let Bob hit, but they needed a change in environment.

Bob:   Just last May, we found another office that we thought would be more suitable and Dave and his team understood the critical nature of staying in contact with our clients and it went quite smoothly. They arrived in the morning about nine and by I think one o’clock in the afternoon we were back up and running.

Mike:  Yeah. Is that as that as typical timeframe to move a business and change everything up?

Dave: It depends on the size, but the harder part about his story is when we went originally, when he told me where he’s going, “Let’s go visit the site.” So, I go visit the site. You look on all the walls and you see all these jacks, “Oh, it’s wired up.” I open the ceiling tiles, they cut every wire.

Mike:  What’s the biggest challenge for you coming into a place and trying to reinvent the IT department?

Dave: Well, it’s the infrastructure. He’s going to make a move to make Comcast, [crosstalk] his Internet, he’s going to have the right power that we’re able to have the time to have the technicians to move because moving’s not easy, Mike, and making that move was coordinating with the vendors, handle his issues with the phones, making sure everybody’s up and we had to go up three flights of stairs, skinny stairs. It takes a good coordination to make a total move over your IT from one house to another.

Mike:  Yeah. Interesting stuff.

Bob:   Prior to the move, Dave coordinated the re-cabling of the office with his power.

Dave: Right. Yeah. But that was weird to see all the cabling cut, Mike. You show up thinking it’s all there and it was all cut. I think they’re angry at their previous landlord or whatever. But every wire was cut. So, we had to rewire the whole building. But Bob didn’t know that. But that was one of the things that you got to look. What’s the infrastructure look like?

Mike:  But obviously for you, Bob, it’s worth the investment to invest into Portsmouth Computer Group. Take away your headaches, take away your stress and just know that you’ve got your system all in place and it’s reliably working 100% of the time.

Bob:   Well not only that, we experienced quite a cost savings moving from the previous vendor.

Mike:  Yeah. Yeah. So, did you ever think it seems like such an overwhelming task to be able to change up the whole system and move and these guys come in and they take all the stress away from you and they make it kind of look easy.

Bob:   Absolutely. In fact, the one thing that the people in the office all said was that they never felt talked down to by any of the people working with PCG when they were preparing to bring the system back up and running.

Customer Relations is a PCG IT Priority

Mike:  Yeah. Customer relations is so important in any business, but I think even more important in your business because really you’re teaching companies what they need and you’re teaching them because a lot of us don’t know the technical aspect of it like we spoke just a few minutes ago.

Dave: That’s a good point, Mike. There’s so many ways that you can run your IT, but from Bob’s side you want to keep it simple, you want to keep it efficient, you want to watch your dollars. But being in healthcare, you got to be up, you got to be nimble, you got to be flexible to work where you want to be. And without that ability to take care of his patients and clients, it makes it difficult.

Mike:  24 hours a day.

Dave: We will kind of see ourselves as the general contractor. We kind of help orchestrate because we’ve done many client moves so we’d done it. It’s not our first rodeo. We know kind of what to do and we’re not perfect at making the move. There’s always a curve ball when you make a move. The moving truck, or whatever, is delayed or there’s something that always happens. But we’ll find a way to get you running.

Mike:  Oh yeah. Sounds good. Any final words today, Dave?

Dave: Just glad that Bob made the visit here today and his organization does a great job in the community and we’re looking forward to continue our drive for IT in the service in the Seacoast area.

Mike:  Bob, great to meet you. Continued success. Thank you for being here from Extended Family. We appreciate it.

Dave: Thank you for having me.

Mike:  Good to have you with us. And Dave, always good to talk to you on Tech Tuesday. It’s not Tech Tuesday without Dave.

Dave: Or the Red Sox.

Mike:  All right. Oh my gosh, you’re going to live and die with them, aren’t you?

Dave: It’s my job.

Mike:  It’s your job. Well, you’re wearing red today, so I get it. Is that a mourning red or?

Dave: It’s my mourning red. Yes.

Mike:  I mean mourning, M-O-U-R-N.

Dave: Oh, that’s a good one.

Mike:  I know, but you’ll get me if the Red Sox make a miraculous comeback, you will really stick it to me at the end of September, won’t you?

Dave: I will.

Mike:  Thank you. Hey, the WTSM morning information center all powered today by Portsmouth Computer Group. Check them out, PCGIT.com. PCGIT for world-class IT service and customer support. Thanks to Bob Chafey again for joining us from Extended Family. Of course, Dave Hodgson from Portsmouth Computer Group. Thank you guys.