How a 40-person insurance agency transformed their IT support experience after switching to Avrem.
This case study is a representative scenario based on the types of IT challenges Avrem Technologies helps organizations solve. Company details and results are illustrative.
The Challenge: When Every IT Problem Became a Waiting Game
For a growing independent insurance agency with approximately 40 employees, technology had become essential to nearly every part of the workday.
Agents depended on cloud applications to manage policies and communicate with carriers. Customer service representatives needed reliable access to email, shared files, and agency management systems. Leadership needed confidence that sensitive client information was protected. And when something stopped working, employees needed help quickly.
Unfortunately, their existing IT support provider wasn’t keeping up.
Routine support requests regularly sat unanswered for hours. In some cases, employees waited a full business day or longer before hearing from a technician. Less urgent tickets could take as long as 48 hours to receive a meaningful response.
The agency had grown accustomed to working around technology problems instead of getting them resolved.
Employees restarted computers repeatedly. Coworkers became unofficial IT support for one another. Agents used personal workarounds when applications weren’t behaving correctly. Managers spent time following up on unresolved tickets instead of focusing on their teams.
None of the individual problems seemed catastrophic.
Together, they were costing the agency hours of productivity every week.
The Problems Were Bigger Than Slow Support
Response time was what initially prompted the agency to look for a new managed IT services provider, but a closer examination revealed a much larger problem.
Their IT environment was almost entirely reactive.
The existing provider did a reasonable job fixing things eventually, but very little was being done to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
The agency was dealing with:
- Support tickets that could remain unresolved for one or two business days
- Recurring Microsoft 365 and email issues
- Inconsistent workstation configurations
- Aging computers with no formal replacement schedule
- Limited visibility into network and endpoint health
- Inconsistent software patching
- Employees receiving suspicious emails without a clear reporting process
- Uncertainty surrounding backups and disaster recovery
- Limited documentation of the agency’s technology environment
- No long-term IT roadmap
For an insurance agency responsible for confidential personal and financial information, the security concerns were particularly important.
Leadership realized they didn’t simply need someone who could fix computers.
They needed an IT partner.
The Search for Better Managed IT Support
The agency began evaluating managed IT service providers with three priorities.
First, support needed to be responsive. Employees shouldn’t lose half a workday waiting for help with an issue that might take a technician five minutes to resolve.
Second, cybersecurity needed to become part of everyday IT management rather than a separate project that was discussed once a year.
Third, leadership wanted predictability. They wanted to understand the condition of their technology, what needed to be replaced, where their risks were, and what IT would realistically cost over the next several years.
That’s what led them to Avrem Technologies.
Rather than beginning the relationship with a list of products to sell, Avrem started by learning how the agency operated.
The Avrem Approach: Assess, Analyze, Remediate
The transition began with a comprehensive review of the agency’s technology environment.
Avrem documented computers, network equipment, software, user accounts, Microsoft 365 configurations, security controls, backup systems, and other critical components.
The assessment immediately provided something the agency had been missing: visibility.
Instead of treating each support ticket as an isolated problem, Avrem could see the entire environment and identify patterns.
Several recurring problems weren’t really support problems at all. They were symptoms of outdated equipment, inconsistent configurations, missing policies, or systems that hadn’t been properly maintained.
Avrem developed a remediation plan that prioritized the issues presenting the greatest operational and cybersecurity risks.
Not everything needed to be replaced.
Not everything needed to happen immediately.
The goal was to create a stable, secure technology foundation and then continuously improve it.
Creating a Consistent IT Environment
One of the first priorities was standardization.
Over years of growth, the agency had accumulated computers purchased at different times, configured in different ways, and running different combinations of software.
That inconsistency made troubleshooting unnecessarily difficult.
Avrem standardized workstation configurations, reviewed software installations, addressed outstanding updates, documented equipment, and established policies for managing devices going forward.
Microsoft 365 configurations were reviewed as well, with attention given to account security, access, and administration.
For employees, most of this work happened quietly in the background.
But the effect became noticeable almost immediately.
Recurring problems began disappearing.
Cybersecurity Became Part of IT Operations
Insurance agencies handle exactly the kind of information cybercriminals want: names, addresses, financial information, policy documentation, identification records, and other sensitive data.
The agency’s previous approach to cybersecurity relied heavily on antivirus software and employee caution.
Avrem implemented a more comprehensive strategy.
Security became an ongoing process involving endpoint protection, monitoring, access controls, patch management, Microsoft 365 security, employee awareness, and backup and recovery planning.
Employees were given clearer guidance for identifying and reporting suspicious activity, while leadership gained better visibility into the organization’s overall security posture.
Instead of asking, “Are we protected?” once a year, cybersecurity became part of the agency’s everyday technology management.
Then Employees Noticed the Biggest Change
The most visible improvement wasn’t a new firewall, security platform, or cloud service.
It was what happened when someone needed help.
An employee submitted a support request.
Fifteen minutes later, they were working with Avrem.
For a team accustomed to waiting hours, and sometimes days, the experience was dramatically different.
At first, employees assumed the quick response was simply part of the onboarding period.
It wasn’t.
Responsive IT support became the new normal.
Before Avrem
A typical technology problem looked something like this:
8:17 AM: An employee discovers they can’t access an application.
8:24 AM: They submit a support ticket.
10:30 AM: Still no response. They ask a coworker for help.
12:15 PM: The employee works around the problem and moves on to other tasks.
3:40 PM: They follow up on the ticket.
Next morning: A technician finally contacts them.
A relatively simple IT issue could affect portions of two workdays.
After Avrem
The experience became much simpler:
8:17 AM: An employee encounters a problem.
8:20 AM: They request support.
8:35 AM: An Avrem technician begins working with them.
8:47 AM: The issue is resolved.
8:48 AM: The employee gets back to work.
The technical problem wasn’t necessarily different.
The support experience was.
The Result: IT Stopped Being a Daily Distraction
Within the first several months, the agency saw a fundamental change in its relationship with technology.
Employees stopped assuming an IT problem would derail their morning.
Managers stopped acting as intermediaries between employees and the IT provider.
Leadership stopped wondering whether critical maintenance was actually being performed.
Most importantly, the agency’s employees could spend more time serving policyholders and less time troubleshooting technology.
The Transformation
Before switching to Avrem:
- Support responses sometimes took up to 48 hours
- IT was largely reactive
- Employees regularly developed their own workarounds
- Recurring technical issues consumed staff time
- Device configurations were inconsistent
- Cybersecurity responsibilities were unclear
- Technology planning was primarily driven by problems
- Leadership had limited visibility into IT health
After switching to Avrem:
- Initial support responses routinely occurred in minutes rather than days
- Systems were proactively monitored and maintained
- Workstations followed consistent management standards
- Recurring issues were addressed at their source
- Cybersecurity became integrated into everyday IT operations
- Microsoft 365 and user access were centrally managed
- Technology needs became easier to anticipate and budget
- Employees had a clear place to turn when they needed help
Faster Support Was Only Part of the ROI
Reducing IT response time from as long as 48 hours to approximately 15 minutes sounded impressive, but leadership eventually realized that response time wasn’t the most important metric.
The bigger improvement was time returned to the business.
Consider a 40-person organization where each employee loses just 20 minutes per week dealing with technology problems.
That’s more than 13 employee hours every month.
And that calculation doesn’t include larger outages, managers helping employees troubleshoot problems, repeated follow-ups with an IT provider, or productivity lost while waiting for access to critical systems.
Reliable managed IT services don’t simply reduce technology problems.
They reduce the amount of organizational attention those problems consume.
From IT Vendor to IT Partner
The agency originally hired Avrem because employees were tired of waiting for technical support.
What they gained was a different approach to IT entirely.
Instead of waiting for something to break, technology was actively monitored and maintained.
Instead of making technology purchases in response to emergencies, leadership could plan upgrades.
Instead of treating cybersecurity as an occasional project, protection became part of normal operations.
And instead of wondering when someone would respond to a support request, employees knew help was readily available.
The relationship evolved from:
“Call the IT company when something breaks.”
to:
“Avrem handles our IT.”
That distinction changed everything.
Could Your IT Provider Respond in 15 Minutes?
Slow IT support costs more than frustration.
Every unanswered ticket represents an employee who may be unable to work efficiently, a customer waiting longer for service, or a business process that isn’t operating the way it should.
And if your IT provider only appears when something breaks, larger problems involving cybersecurity, backups, infrastructure, and compliance may remain unnoticed until they become emergencies.
Avrem Technologies provides fully managed IT services designed to give organizations a proactive technology partner rather than another vendor to manage.
From everyday help desk support and Microsoft 365 management to cybersecurity, compliance, cloud services, infrastructure, and disaster planning, Avrem helps businesses build technology environments that are secure, reliable, and easier to manage.
Your employees shouldn’t have to plan their day around waiting for IT support.
If slow response times, recurring technology problems, or uncertainty about cybersecurity have become normal at your organization, it may be time to expect more from your IT provider.
Talk with Avrem Technologies about a better approach to managed IT.