The importance of reliability and maintenance

The survey found that over 88% of respondents agreed with the statement ‘maintenance and call out services are as important as the hardware itself’, reflecting the business critical position UPS systems hold within user's organisations.

The survey results further demonstrates the importance of UPS reliability, divulging that 66.05% of respondents believe ‘maximum reliability or uptime is the number one product feature they look for when selecting a UPS system or supplier’. High quality service was the second most popular option, followed by low total cost of ownership and having a dedicated account manager.

Consistent with previous surveys, ‘always having the latest product technology’ was the least popular choice, with only 7.91% claiming it as their most important attribute and almost 36% of participants identifying it as their least important factor when selecting a UPS supplier.

Alan Luscombe, Director, UPS, commented on the survey’s findings adding: “We have always known that reliability and professional maintenance and support services are vital to our customers and the wider UPS industry. However, what’s interesting to see is that TCO has fallen in significance from previous surveys, overtaken by high quality service. This could reflect a perceived easing of financial pressures or higher efficiency products filtering into the marketplace or possibly an increase in the critical nature of the systems that respondents are responsible for."

“Regardless, it demonstrates how users are looking for a UPS partner which will work with them and support them, not deliver a product and disappear. At UPS, we have invested heavily in building the only UK wide UPS support network able to offer 24/7 support all year round, with guaranteed response times. Combined with all the benefits UPS is able to offer, we know that our service offering means a huge amount to the organisations we work with and the survey results support that belief.”