Case study: Responsive support is essential for Mid and North East Essex Mind

Mid and North East Essex Mind is a local mental health charity with a mission to listen to its communities and offer compassionate and inclusive mental health services, resources, and practical support to promote wellbeing for everyone.

As a Microsoft 365 based organisation, the charity needed an IT Support partner that would not only be an expert in Microsoft 365 implementation and security but provide a highly responsive level of customer service for its users.

Having gone out to tender, the charity was impressed by Strident’s proposal, its focus on response times and positive recommendations from colleagues.

Linda Phelan, Head of Finance and Compliance at Mid and North East Essex Mind highlights the issues of supporting its users. "The charity has about 100 employees, of which around 50% are part-time. Although we have a few PCs in our main office, the majority of our colleagues work remotely, using laptops and smartphones."

Engineers at the end of the phone

At the previous supplier, IT issues were reported to a receptionist for a support engineer to call back at some undefined time. "As our colleagues spend their time supporting clients, and many work in the evenings, the opportunity to report and resolve IT issues is limited," adds Linda.

"With Strident, our colleagues can get directly through to an engineer who can provide support immediately. This allows issues to be resolved far more quickly than trying to orchestrate a mutually convenient time."

"The support has been excellent. The engineers are very approachable and provide understandable support to our mostly non-technical user base," says Linda.

Moving beyond support

In addition to user support, Mid and North East Essex Mind is looking to extend the charity’s security too. "We are Cyber Essentials accredited and we'll be working with Strident to keep that up to date, and to review our Microsoft Sharepoint operation to see where any improvements can be made."

Strident prides itself on providing a proactive partnership to customers, improving business productivity and security before problems occur. If you would like Strident to help support your business, please get in touch.