5 Essential Questions You Should Ask Your IT Support Company
These days, every business has an IT support service. But there may come a point where you want to upgrade those services, and look for another provider that suits your evolving needs.
When you do, you want peace of mind; you’re making the right choice.
So more than the standard services they provide, more than the software and tools they use, here are five essential questions to ask your new IT support company in Adelaide to ensure you’re getting the most out of your relationship with them.
What are your service-level agreements?
Getting the right service-level agreement (SLA) is a crucial step in ensuring you’re getting the best level of IT support for your Adelaide business.
The SLA sets the baseline of their service delivery to your business. It clearly lays out what you can expect from them, the level of service they provide, and how they measure performance when working with your business. It helps to cut out any ambiguity, so there are no miscommunications, no misinterpretations, and both parties know exactly what level of service and expectations are out on the table.
It includes things like their response time, hardware and software fix & repair time, downtime, case priorities, change requests, and escalations.
While SLAs can be fairly standard, every business is different. So your IT support provider needs to offer flexibility in their SLA too. It needs to be tailored to your business, so your specific needs and requirements are met. It can also define who your main point of contact is, and what to expect when dealing with this person.
Can you advise me on the best IT hardware and software for my business?
This question helps determine whether the provider is the right IT company in Adelaide to deliver on your business’ requirements.
They can work with you to assess your IT needs—not just now, but for the future. They can ensure your IT budget and infrastructure needs are planned out for the long term, and are matched with your business goals.
This isn’t just about getting the best equipment. It’s about the best equipment for your business. It’s also about confirming that you’re working with a team with your business goals in mind, and not just about what’s best for their bottom line.
What’s your step-by-step process for managing IT support issues?
This is a crucial question to ask, and one any good IT support company will be happy to answer. This helps you identify if their service is right for your needs.
Ask to see their workflow for managing your issues. They should be able to help you understand each step, and what this can deliver for your staff. Is it more streamlined than what you have now? Does it offer more in terms of solutions?
They’ll be able to clearly show you how your problems get escalated and solved, and the platforms and software they use to achieve this.
Look at all the communication touch points, too. Is it a simple IT ticketing system, or do they have instant messaging systems as part of their support service? This indicates how responsive and available they’ll be to your staff.
What are you doing to continually improve your services?
It may sound like an obvious question, but this one is what separates the good IT services from the great. A mature, experienced IT company in Adelaide will have a long-term plan in place for growth. Not necessarily in terms of size, but in terms of evolving as the industry does.
And while they won’t necessarily walk you through this in detail (it’s likely highly confidential), they’ll be able to have a chat with you broadly about what they’ve got planned to ensure their staff, teams, infrastructure capacity, and business as a whole stays at the top of its game.
This gives you a good indication on just how this business will be placed to grow with your business as it scales.
How will you keep my business’ data secure?
Data security is your business’ safety net, so you want to make sure that your new IT support company can deliver. So be sure to ask about their data security practices.
Identify whether they offer on-site data storage and backup, remote storage, or cloud backup solutions. Determine what their protocols are for IT security: what are their processes when any threats are identified, and their response plan for neutralising threats? What does their incident response plan look like, and what does it cover?
These questions are all designed to give you peace of mind that you’re getting the right IT support for your Adelaide business.
The first step? Getting on the phone and organising a discussion with your new IT support company.
GPK is an experienced IT company in Adelaide that delivers comprehensive, cost-effective, and—most importantly—powerful IT support services. Get in touch with us today to discuss what we can do for your organisation. We can even prompt you on the right questions to ask, to demonstrate what we can help you achieve.