Deep River, Ontario lies along the Ottawa River, the border between Ontario and Quebec. It’s a 2 hour drive from Ottawa, 4 hour drive from Montreal, and walking distance to the deepest stretch of the Ottawa River, hence the name Deep River.
The town had a problem with their previous IT solution, and they ended up contacting OnServe for help. We spoke with Louise McLaughlin, Deputy Clerk of Deep River, to find out what it was that made them choose OnServe instead of some other IT company. First, what was wrong with the IT service they were using before OnServe?
“Just prior to going onboard with OnServe, we had an IT person about an hour away from us who would come and fix problems on an as needed basis, McLaughlin said. “We had been trying to purchase a new server for over a year, and this person was leaving all of those big decisions up to us, as to what we wanted in a server”.
“We do not have staff who are qualified enough to even begin to know what we needed in a server. So we were getting all these quotes from this person, but nobody really knew what we needed”.
“And they would only band aid things for us, fix problems as they happened… We’ve never had anybody on staff. We had people come from here, there, and everywhere and fix the problem of the day and then leave. There was never any ongoing checking of our server, we just fixed things as they broke down.”
Deep River met OnServe at an AMTCO conference. Eventually the town’s relationship with its IT solution ended. OnServe engaged with Deep River to figure out together which server was a fit for them, and they installed the server, migrated all email files, and set up a remote server on the cloud to store backups off-site for safekeeping.
All that sounds great on paper, but what was it like to actually work with the people of OnServe?
“It’s been excellent,” McLaughlin answered. “The one thing I do find is that if they don’t find a solution for you at the time, they work on it until they do… sometimes we’ll have a question about a program, for instance. Is there a way we could do this or that? They’ll find the answer, and they’re always quick to respond.”
OnServe provides fully managed IT solutions, business continuity, cloud migration, and consulting sessions with senior tech experts. See the same results as the Town of Deep River for your municipality by contacting the team at Onserve at (877) 996-6622 or sales@onserve.ca.
