If you’re looking for an IT support provider for your business, be aware that there are many different options on the market. Depending on the size of your business, the sector you’re in, and your geographical location, there will likely be a number of different options for IT partners, and so it is worth knowing how an excellent IT company distinguishes themselves from the crowd.
When you are looking for a truly exceptional IT support company, you should be looking at various different factors – such as their experience, their track record, the services they provide; as all of these factors (and several more) will give you an idea of what they can do for you.
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Experience
Firstly, when looking into an IT support company, consider their experience; to start with, how many years have they been active for? As an organisation with a decade’s worth of experience or more will unequivocally be better than an organisation with 5 years of experience or less.
But it also goes much deeper than that. For instance, does your organisation use specific software and services? And does the IT support company you’re looking at mention working with those products and services on their website?
Looking to see whether the company has any customer testimonials is also another good way of ascertaining the company’s experience.
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Competitive Resolution Times
A great IT company will be highly sensitive to the value of its customer’s time. Being one of the most valuable resources a business has, time should also be at the top of an IT support provider’s priority.
Looking into whether an IT support provider has any figures regarding their resolution times is also a good idea. Some company will offer service-level agreements (SLAs) with certain services – an SLA is designed to inform customers of the standard of service they can expect from the provider which, oftentimes, includes time-sensitive service.
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Industry Expertise
Perhaps you are in a sector with unique requirements – such as healthcare, or financial services. In this case, you will definitely want to partner with an IT company that has experience serving customers in the same sector as you. If you see that they have existing clients in your sector, you can be confident they will understand the ins and outs of the sector, and the unique IT-related challenges you experience.
An IT company with experience in your industry might even have certain recommendations for technologies that would alleviate challenges you experience.
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Proactivity
Gone are the days where IT support companies can rely on the break-fix model. Businesses are becoming much more savvy to the IT sector, and they won’t tolerate long wait-times. A next-level IT support partner will understand that a proactive approach to support is not only in the clients interest, but in their own interest.
As the old saying goes, a stitch in time saves nine, and the best IT providers implement a range of proactive services that enables them to react to cases much more quickly, and resolve them much sooner. Look for providers that use techniques like proactive network monitoring to anticipate problems before they affect the client.
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Flexible Terms
When looking for IT support, budget is definitely a large factor. You shouldn’t be paying for more than you are using, which is why good IT support companies offer flexible terms for their services. For example, they might offer different packages that include (or exclude) services – if you don’t have offices, you won’t want to be paying for unlimited callouts; nor will you want to pay for 24-hour coverage if your company is only operating 4-days a week.
But with all of that said, the option for more should always be there, and it should be easy to upgrade, or scale up the service you are paying for.
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