It’s about time that your company decided to outsource at least some, or all, of its IT functions to a reliable IT support service provider. During the process of looking for an IT support company, you would notice that there is an abundance of IT support providing companies, but it is a difficult and complicated task to find the one that best suits your company.
IT, such a business-critical function, when put in the hands of a third party can seem to be quite a daunting process. How are you sure that the provider is reliable or not? What would be the consequences of the mistakes made by them? All these questions and doubts make the process of selecting an IT service provider important so that your company can rely on their services to fix IT problems or computer repair problems.
The following are some of the important questions that you need to ask while interviewing potential IT service providers for your company.
- Where are they based?
This specific question is not really about the location of their head office, but about the location of their servers. This is an important aspect if the company would provide services such as VoIP or cloud hosting, as it has the ability to affect the quality of your services. - Which geographical areas do they cover?
With the advancement in technology, it is no longer necessary for your IT support provider to be based in the same location as your firm. However, if you have future plans of moving your premise or expanding in different countries then you must ensure that they can support you there as well. - Do they offer different levels of IT
support?
Most of the reputable IT support companies provide with different services level to suit different requirements and budgets. This may include, managed service support, computer repair services, etc. - Do they have any guaranteed response
time?
If you invest in an IT support company then you should also expect them to offer guaranteed response time in case of any urgent problem. However, the response time may differ and depend on the level of support that you are willing to pay for; and it is most likely that there would be different response time offered for different priority levels.
It is also necessary to differentiate between response and resolution times. If they just say two hours, then you must ask them and clarify if they mean that they would respond you within the next couple of hours or would they resolve the problem altogether by that time. - Will you get a dedicated engineer for
your company?
It would be quite unreasonable to get to work with just one engineer. All technical staff would have distinct areas of expertise; hence it only makes sense for an IT service providing company to assign the best-suited engineer for your firm.
These are some of the important questions you must ask and tips you need to keep in mind before hiring an IT service provider.