News

We have all had to adjust to a new business reality in a short space of time, making it easy to get disoriented in the rush to implement new protocols to continue to do business while still servicing our customers and keeping them - and our staff -  safe.

We understand how important your management system is to your operation. RADical Systems, from our offices in the UK and Hong Kong, continue to offer a full support service to all our self storage customers around the globe.

There are two areas we feel should not be forgotten in the rapid need to adapt to the limitations imposed by the spread of COVID-19.

Try to see your service delivery from your customers’ perspective; not based on your effort. That customer experience is everything; it makes or breaks a relationship.

Most customers understand and appreciate the efforts made by suppliers in a challenging time. But the intense efforts service providers undertake are invisible to some customers. Rather than seeing the herculean efforts made to keep ‘business as usual’, the inevitable inability to match a pre-covid-19 offerings at 100% may be the only thing they notice.

Under stress, people often think the worst. Work to put yourself in your customer’s position and imagine what they must see when dealing with your company today. Keep all customers informed, even if it is just as a courtesy or to tell them what you are doing to maintain normal service levels.

Consider changing or augmenting your communications channels if your messages are not getting through.

How customers feel about you will likely persist well beyond this awful pandemic, both the good and the bad.

Don’t forget to secure your data, through a local backup or an online one - or both.

All companies generate data, lots of it. Prior to the pandemic, probably the majority of this was generated on local computers with local systems in place to ensure it was all safe and secure. Whether you use a local backup system or back up on-line the starting point is likely systems at your premises.

Now we find ourselves with staff working predominantly from home, through the cloud, or via a direct connection to the office. Data is being generated and distributed on multiple unprotected PCs (for example on home and family computers and laptops). Given these new ways of working have often been introduced on such short notice, I would urge you to ensure that you check your backups are still fit for purpose.

Backup is not just about securing data from accidental deletion. Hardware failure, theft, corruption, computer viruses, hacking,  ransomware, and communications channel failure are among the numerous ways essential data can be lost. 


This includes on-line service providers who host programs or services you may use; they will also now have staff working from home. They too will have to follow social distancing rules at their data centres and other locations. The inevitable reduction of staff adds to the potential vulnerability of their systems - and your data. 

Part of your backup strategy update should be to check they too are doing what is necessary to safeguard the data they hold for all the same reasons as you
Remember, one of the best ways to test a backup is to test for its successful restoration – the first time you find out that a backup is useless must not be when you actually need it not to be!

I hope this has been of some help. We are working hard to ensure ‘business as usual’ service levels at RADical Systems. Our staff, in the UK and Hong Kong, are ready to take your call. Whether you need support, have an enquiry or would just like a chat, we are here for you.

In the meantime, until this pandemic is over, stay safe, be well and I offer you and your families my very best wishes for the future.

Rip Bucks
MANAGING DIRECTOR