Most small and medium businesses cannot really afford to maintain their own IT departments, which was a big problem at one point in time that restricted their growth opportunities to a great extent. That is no longer an issue mostly, since IT support companies handle the work for small businesses nowadays, at a fraction of the ongoing expense that comes with recruiting and paying an in-house IT department.
That being said, how would a SME know whether a particular IT support company would be the right fit for their business model or not? This should not be difficult, as long as you know what to expect and test the company’s capabilities to fulfil your business’s IT needs.
Inclusion of All Basic Tasks
Even before the tickets, we must check the IT support team’s awareness and diligence towards:
- Checking and confirming that data is getting backed up properly
- Checking that the stored data is not being stolen, breached or corrupted from the physical servers
- Updating servers and keeping all cybersecurity measures running on it
- Taking additional security measures, as is deemed necessary
These should be the minimum requirements enlisted on the service agreement, alongside other, specific and sector-oriented services.
Comprehensive IT Support
Comprehensive IT support is somewhat difficult to describe without a particular scenario, because IT business services in their entirety are innumerable. Nevertheless, it would be proper to state that as a business owner, you should expect your IT support partner to meet all your demands, general or specific. For example, Impreza is a name in IT Support Kent based SMEs trust for any and all aspects related to IT.
The IT experts from Impreza IT have achieved that level of confidence and reliability because of the completeness of their services; something that they have been providing for over two decades at this point. From dedicated account management and software application development, to superfast ticket resolutions, they cater their services to suit and meet all IT needs of each specific client. This would ideally be the type of comprehensive service that SMEs should expect from their IT support partners.
Transparency
Information Technology can get quite complicated and there are aspects of it that only those experienced in that particular field of technology can understand. Nevertheless, that should not be an excuse for the IT team to not be transparent. Everything they do and every step they take should be available for the client to review, if and when they wish to. Ticket monitoring from the client side is an expected feature of external IT support, so expect it to be part of the package before signing up.
When there’s doubt regarding any step taken by the IT support partner at any stage, the client should have all data available to them, so that they can get it verified by an external party. Ticket monitoring from the client side is an expected feature of external IT support, so expect it to be part of the package before signing up.
In case the company in question is offering a trial run for their potential clients to test the offered features out, that would be ideal. Aside from showing how confident the IT support team is in their abilities, it will obviously let you make a more informed decision regarding their suitability to your company’s business model.
