Does Your IT Support Fix Problems Before They Even Occur?
Are you tired of waiting for IT problems to get fixed? The fact is that, even if your IT support is fast, there’s still some amount of downtime for you and your team to deal with every time something goes wrong. Whether it’s five minutes or five hours, that’s time in which you’re paying wages and other operating expenses, but you’re not getting anything accomplished. This is the biggest problem with reactive IT support. Don’t you wish you could avoid these IT issues in the first place?
Is Your IT Support Reactive?
Call it whatever you like, but it’s essentially “hourly IT support”. This is the traditional style of outsourced IT services, which works by fixing your computers once they’re broken. In a nutshell, when something goes wrong — data loss, hardware failure, virus, etc. — you then get in touch with your support provider and have them fix it. This strategy no longer works today. If you still use this method of IT service, you risk downtime that can slow you down. Reactive IT support leads to a number of problems:- Impermanent Solutions: When they’re charging by the hour, they’re encouraged to focus on billable hours. It doesn’t benefit them if your tech is working the way it should. You could find yourself repeatedly calling them to help with a problem that never quite gets resolved.
- Rapid Escalation: A minor computer problem can quickly turn into a disaster. This is especially true today with the increase in cybercrime like ransomware. What starts out with just one malicious email can spread throughout your entire network, locking down your data, and your operations.
- Further Delays: It could take days to fix your problem – in the meantime, your employees won’t have access to the data they need to continue working. You’re simply “bleeding money” by the minute.
- Cost Of Downtime: Your support provider starts charging you after you’ve already lost work time – time spent on repairs or updates can add up fast.
- Inaccurate Budgeting: It’s impossible to predict how much to budget for IT services. You can’t know what will happen or how expensive it might be.
Your IT Support Should Be Proactive
Proactive IT support monitors and maintains your IT on an ongoing basis. Operationally, proactive monitoring provides a view into the health and status of IT assets. Like air traffic controllers, your IT company uses monitoring tools to see network traffic and plan actions to avoid potential problems. They can act proactively while using the tools to benchmark performance. From active monitoring and patch management to responsive on-site and Help Desk support services, fully managed support takes care of everything you need. Advantages include:- Freedom Of Focus: You can finally focus on running your firm and not on IT worries. Your IT support provider will minimize or eliminate downtime that could hit your bottom line.
- Easy Budgeting: You’ll benefit from a flat-rate payment model, allowing you to budget your tech more effectively. You’ll be able to plan for growth far more easily and with greater peace of mind.
- Cost-Effect: Tech maintenance from a third party is more cost-effective than relying on reactive solutions, especially when you consider the lost revenue from downtime.
