Businesses today need more than just a help desk from their IT outsourcing provider. At a minimum, your IT support provider should keep things running, but it takes more than functional IT to get your business where you want it to go. What your business really needs is for your technology not to break in the first place. Your IT services provider should be proactive about remediating your business pains and have a clear understanding of the goals you are trying to achieve. And, most importantly, they should recommend technology that aligns with those goals all while making sure that your data is secure. There are many reasons why you might be unhappy with your existing IT Support provider, but here are a few that we hear from companies.
1) Your IT Outsourcing Provider Is Not Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Technology
Tools like Microsoft 365 have a lot to offer, but you need to know the best way to leverage the tools included and when it makes sense to implement these solutions within your business. Your IT outsourcing provider should work with your business to help you identify the gaps around optimizing technology usage and provide training and continued education to help your employees leverage their applications and tools to accomplish more with less.
A valuable IT outsourcing provider will work with your staff to provide the IT education and support they need to get more done with less.
2) It Takes Too Long to Get IT Support When You Need It
Employee productivity is essential to driving your success. When your employees are unable to get the IT support they need when they need it, your business feels it.
Responsive, proactive IT support is key to keep things running and avoid problems down the road. If your team complains about spending too much time getting IT support, there’s a good chance the IT outsourcing provider you’re using doesn’t have the resources or operational capacity to serve your business the way you need them to. In other words, you may have outgrown your IT provider. Your IT provider should give you a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that promises not only how quickly they will answer the phone and begin working on your issue, but how quickly they will respond to and resolve your issue.
3) You Are Constantly Faced with Surprise IT Costs
If your IT provider is only focused on fixing issues as they arise, you’re experiencing recurring, surprise IT costs. Not only should your IT support team be focused on preventing IT issues, but they should also be working with your leadership team to create an IT roadmap and that outlines the budget and technology initiatives you can expect over the next 18 to 24 months.
4) You Are Experiencing the Same IT Issues and Business Pains Again and Again
Are your employees calling in about the same IT issue repeatedly? If your business pains continue to stall the productivity of your team, your IT provider is not treating the core problem. Your IT support team should not just put a Band-Aid over your business pains. Proactive, strategic support takes the right amount of planning and communication, but it can help your employees get more done and drive business results.
5) Your IT Support Provider Keeps Making the Same Mistakes
Reliability and consistency are two key standards your customers expect from your business. Why shouldn’t you expect the same thing from your IT services provider? Without the proper documentation, your IT provider cannot handle recurring processes and issues with minimal disruptions to employee productivity and business operations. Basic tasks like new employee onboarding seem chaotic and your new team members are not provided with the tools they need or the access permissions they require to do their jobs. If your IT provider does not keep thorough documentation around your business needs, technology issues, and future IT initiatives, they aren’t able to clearly understand your business and deliver the IT support you need to meet your goals.
6) Your Employees Are Spending Too Much Time on IT
A lack of proper documentation and understanding of your business can also impact how much time your employees spend working with IT to get their issues resolved. If your team is finding it easier to fix their IT issues on their own, they are spending time and your business resources on things they shouldn’t be and taking time away from improving your core business.
7) You Have to Be the Go-Between for Your Business & IT Vendors
Getting caught in the middle between your technology vendors and your IT provider can feel like a never-ending game of finger-pointing. When you don’t have the tools and resources you need to act on business initiatives and quickly leverage opportunities, you’re already experiencing business pains. Your team shouldn’t be spending time resolving vendor issues that shouldn’t have occurred in the first place, but your employees are also not IT experts. It’s not their job to know what vendor resources they need to push forward with a technology initiative, it’s your IT team’s job. With the right IT support solution in place, your business and its employees won’t feel like they are a bottleneck in the vendor management and procurement process. IT Support should serve as a single point of contact for your technology vendors and should handle everything from attaining and setting up new devices, to alerting you of upcoming expirations and renewals before they are an issue for your business.
8) Your IT Support Provider Doesn’t Understand Your Business
If your IT services provider doesn’t understand your business, they can’t give you the IT support you need to be successful. Your business is unique, and a one-size-fits-all IT solution won’t support your organization’s specific needs and industry demands. Your IT team should be making recommendations to invest in and implement IT solutions that align with your long-term objectives to support the goals you are trying to accomplish.
9) You Do Not Know If Your Network Is Secure, Backed Up, and Protected
While IT issues can often feel glaringly obvious as your organization experiences business pains and operational delays, IT security risks are often overlooked when the right level of monitoring and proactive security defenses are not in place. If your IT outsourcing provider isn’t actively working with your business to educate your employees around cybersecurity and putting the right tools in place to defend against a breach, your valuable data and reputation are faced with significant risk. You need to know what policies, procedures, and technologies are being leveraged to defend your organization against cyber threats. In addition, they should be proactively educating your leadership team and staff on the latest cybersecurity best-practices and solutions. Our approach is centered around proactively working with your business to deliver the best-fit IT solution for your business by covering all the elements around your technology strategy, design, implementation, support, and security. When it comes to dealing with poor IT support, these “little fires” add up and take time away from what matters most, your core business. Schedule time with an Aldridge representative to learn more about our approach to successful IT and how the right IT Outsourcing and Managed Services solution can drive productivity and value across your business.