Not all companies are able to afford to hire their own IT support technicians, yet, because of the age we live in, they are a necessary expense. The alternative is to enlist business IT support services. It is vital that the correct business IT support services are chosen. The following aspects need to be considered.
Trust
No relationship can be successful without trust. As such it is vital that you trust the business IT support services that you enlist. The only way to ensure that this trust is present is to do research into the company’s background and to contact current clients to discover what kind of service they are given.
Skills
The business IT support services that you decide to hire must have the correct skill set. If there is any specialised equipment in use in your company, you need to be sure that any problems will be corrected quickly and efficiently. You do not want to have the IT support company looking for an outsourced technician to deal with the equipment. This kind of tactic is likely to increase the cost of your service level agreement and the point of outsourcing your IT support is to cut costs, not increase them.
Procedures
You need to know what the procedure for logging a fault and correcting a fault are. You need to be sure that the business IT support services will keep an accurate time log of all the work done for your company. This is the best way to be sure that you are getting all the services agreed upon in your service level agreement. If an honest record of time spent is not kept and technicians try to cut corners you may want to find a new IT support service.
Flexibility
It is important when you are negotiating with business IT support services that the SLA is a flexible agreement. The needs of your company will change and so you will need to change the agreement between you and your service provider. If this is not possible without numerous meetings and drafting of completely new contracts, then you may want to look for a company that is more flexible.