Case Study - Eildon IT Training & Consulting

Tuesday 25 August 2026

From a spare room in lockdown to a training room in Haddington House

Eildon IT Training & Consulting is a Trading Standards vetted East Lothian Trusted Trader, offering one to one tech training and small group workshops from Haddington House on Sidegate in Haddington, for complete beginners upwards and with a particular focus on older learners and small businesses.

In the first lockdown of 2020, a great many people discovered at very short notice that a computer was no longer optional. Ordering the shopping, booking an appointment, seeing a grandchild: all of it moved onto a screen, and a lot of people were left standing on the wrong side of it. Alison Low started Eildon Training that year to do something about it.

She was well placed to. She had spent years working in IT, and her spare time volunteering as a computer buddy with East Lothian Libraries, where she had already seen what patient one to one help could do for somebody who had been quietly avoiding the whole subject.

The business started in a spare room at home. By 2023 it had outgrown it and moved into its first premises at Haddington House on Sidegate in Haddington, a listed building overlooking the gardens of St Mary's Pleasance. In October 2025 it took a larger suite in the same building, which is what made the small group workshops possible alongside the one to one work.

The bit that is not about computers

The technical content of a session is the straightforward part. The harder part is that most people who book one arrive slightly embarrassed, convinced they are about to be the slowest person in the room, and braced to be talked down to. Nothing gets learned in that state.

So the room is set up against it. There is a fireplace, a lot of plants, comfortable chairs, a window over the gardens and a cup of tea, which is not decoration so much as a working part of the method. People who are relaxed ask the question they actually came in with, rather than the tidier one they had prepared.

Sessions end with written notes, so nobody has to remember it all on the day, and five weekdays of office support afterwards, for the moment a week later when the same screen appears and the confidence does not. Between the one to one mentoring and the group workshops, the aim is the same: somebody leaves able to do the thing themselves.

Why an accreditation matters more when your clients are older

Alison's reason for joining East Lothian Trusted Trader was specific to who her clients are. “Most of my clients are older people,” she says. “I felt that being part of the scheme would provide them with the security of knowing that I was a legitimate business committed to providing the best customer service.”

It is a fair concern. Older people are the group most often targeted by cold callers and by people who arrive uninvited offering to fix a computer problem that does not exist, so inviting a stranger in to sit beside you at your own machine is a bigger ask than it looks.

She wanted the vetting to be thorough for that reason, and says so plainly: she wanted it “to match my expectations of what it means to be a member of the Trusted Trader scheme.”

The certificate on the wall does a job

It is not filed away. It hangs where a new client sees it, and it earns its place in the first ten minutes of a conversation.

“If you visit my office, one of the first things you will spot is my Trusted Trader certificate,” Alison says. “I know that asking for tech help can feel daunting, and many of my clients arrive feeling a bit anxious about where to start. Bringing up the scheme during our initial chat always helps break the ice.”

“More than just tech support and training: friendly, vetted, and vouched for.”

The logo goes on the website and the Facebook pages, and into her print features in The East Lothian Courier. A few times a year she also mentions her membership in local Facebook groups, which reliably produces a jump in enquiries. She is deliberately sparing with it, on the reasonable view that a community group is not an advertising channel and stops working as one if treated like one.

Support behind the badge

What she did not expect was how much use the scheme would be behind the scenes. Natalie on the Trusted Trader team walked her through the application when she joined, and has been the person she goes to since.

The example Alison gives is a client who tried to use the threat of a negative review as leverage. It is an ugly position for a sole trader to be in, and an easy one to handle badly under pressure. The advice she got gave her the confidence to deal with it properly and professionally rather than react to it, which is the sort of thing that is hard to put a value on until it happens to you.

Next stop, Edinburgh

With a settled base in Haddington and a client list built almost entirely on recommendation, the next step is the city. Alison is working through the demographics and the numbers before committing, but her reading is that Edinburgh has plenty of computer training and very little of the specific thing she does, which is patient, tailored tech coaching for nervous beginners.

“Expanding into the city allows us to fill a vital void in the community,” she says, “while continuing our mission of building digital confidence.”

Alison Low, Business Owner, Course Coordinator and Specialist Trainer
Eildon IT Training & Consulting

Common questions

Who is Eildon IT Training for?
Complete beginners through to confident users, with a particular focus on older learners and small businesses. Training covers both Windows and Apple devices, one to one or in small groups, and the office and toilet at Haddington House are wheelchair friendly.

What happens after a session?
Every session comes with written follow up notes, plus five weekdays of office support afterwards, so there is somebody to ask when the same problem reappears at home.

What does Trading Standards vetted mean?
The business and its owners have been vetted by Trading Standards before being admitted to the scheme. Trading Standards vet the business and its owners, they do not check, inspect or approve the quality of the work carried out.

• View Eildon IT Training's East Lothian Trusted Trader profile.
• Read Eildon IT Training's verified customer reviews.
• If you would like to become a Trusted Trader, you can apply here.
• If you are a Trusted Trader and would like to leave a case study either as text or as a video, get in touch.