September was a steady month, and it started with a familiar face. Matt Hurley, whom we’d helped before when he worked at another agency, has set up his own agency, Mondevo, and asked us to look after its IT. He’d been running it on Microsoft 365 and Apple Mail, with his email hosted with Ionos and all his files stored on a 1TB SSD with no backup. He signed up for Google Workspace by Kimbley IT we got him set up over the weekend of the 19th.
More leads are finding us by asking AI. A US business setting up a telehealth practice got in touch after Gemini and ChatGPT pointed them our way. They wanted HIPAA-compliant email on Google Workspace. They’re not ready to spend until the practice starts bringing in money, but I’ve been told I’ll be their guy when it does. A software company in Toronto also found us through AI and pitched a partnership. A consultant who’s just starting out on his own came to us on a recommendation but couldn’t stretch to the full service until the spring.
Google’s own sales team gave us a bit of extra work this month. A couple of our clients received an “exclusive offer” to save a few pounds per licence by committing to a year. For one client with 68 team members, that would have meant paying for all 68 licences for 12 months, including for anyone who left during that time. Once I’d explained that, they agreed it sounded like a terrible idea.
I also spent a good chunk of September on video calls with clients, working out where AI fits in their businesses. One client approved Claude for the whole team. They also saw how Sheets canvas could replace a CRM that was retaining data for far longer than GDPR allows. Another client, looking to take on defence work, wanted to know how to lock everything down. We talked through hardening their Google Workspace instance, the trade-offs with convenience, and adding a Starlink connection in case the internet goes down. Two accountancy clients worked through Apps Script templates, Gemini Gems and connecting HubSpot to Gemini, and one of them is moving its screen recordings from Loom to Google Vids.
Behind the scenes, I’ve been handing more of the hands-on work to Claude. With control of a browser, it rebuilt the chat setup on our website in about 90 minutes. It then set up the Cloudflare rules that stop my own visits from being counted in about 10. Website visitors are now greeted by Kaisey, our AI agent, who passes them over to Kyle or me.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how far AI could take a real problem, so I used it to build a free tool for my daughter’s school. It turns the timetable PDF that the school provides into a clearer, easier-to-read version for anyone, with options for colour-blind users and for lighter ink when printed, and it works for any school using the same system. It made me wonder why more schools aren’t doing this themselves to improve what they hand out to pupils.
New videos on our YouTube channel
New blog posts
What Is Shadow AI, and How Do You Stop Your Team Using Unapproved AI Tools?
Why Does Windows Keep Interrupting Me with Updates, and How Do I Stop It?
Why Does Rating an AI Answer Override Your Privacy Settings?
Assistance and Support Statistics
In September, our clients’ team members contacted us 186 times. 110 of those contacts were for assistance, where a team member wanted to know how to do something, and 76 were for support, where something was not working as it should.
Of the 110 assistance contacts, 34 were resolved in less than five minutes, 41 were resolved between five and thirty minutes, 17 were resolved in over thirty minutes but less than an hour, and 18 were resolved in more than an hour.
Of the 76 support contacts, 15 were resolved and the team member back at their work in less than five minutes, 40 were resolved and the team member back at their work between five and thirty minutes, 14 were resolved and the team member back at their work in over thirty minutes but less than an hour, and 7 were resolved and the team member back at their work in more than an hour.
All of these contacts came to us through our instant messaging support service.
43 team members would not have needed to get in contact if the companies they worked for offered regular training through Learning Sessions by Kimbley IT.
