IT Support Roseville

Choosing the best IT support partner in Roseville

These days, IT is likely to be something you need rather than something you particularly want. That’s why IT managed services is such a huge industry. IT managed services, however, only deals with everyday care and maintenance. It does not deal with projects and it does not deal with fixing problems. For either (or both) of those, you either need an IT support partner. With that in mind, here is a guide to choosing the best IT support partner in Roseville.

Thinks To be Considered IT support partner

Put your house in order before you think about a long-term partnership agreement

If you’re looking for an IT support partner because you are continually having issues with your IT system, then you will probably be best to work with an IT support company on a short-term basis until you get everything running smoothly, then hand the management of your IT infrastructure over to an IT managed services partner to ensure that it stays running smoothly, then do a proper assessment of your needs and wants with a view to establishing a long-term partnership with an IT support partner in Roseville.

You might find that, in principle, you are perfectly happy to work with the same IT support company. That’s absolutely fine, but you will still need to reassess the situation to see what sort of help you’re likely to need going forward and to confirm that they are still the best person to deliver it.

Set out clear goals for your IT support partnership

Once your house is running smoothly, you’ll be able to think about what improvements, if any, you want to make. Project work can and should be planned in advance and if you do a thorough job of the planning, it should be fairly obvious what sort of help you’re going to need from an IT support partner. If you think you’re only going to need a bit of extra support here and there, then you might want to opt for the flexibility of ad hoc service. If, however, you’re looking at fairly extensive service, then a subscription or bundle will probably be more cost-effective.

Be aware that subscriptions and bundles are generally sold on a “use-them-or-lose them” basis, or with very limited options for carrying over unused credits/hours. This means that you may need to be a bit careful about buying too far in advance. They will also generally be non-refundable, so, again, the more accurately you can define your requirements, the more accurately you can purchase what you need without overspending. That said, it is usually a smart idea to set aside some extra funds for project overruns, just in case.

You should also think about how you are going to deal with break/fix issues. Given that these are, by definition, unplanned, you’re inevitably going to be looking at ad hoc pricing. So you’ll want to know not just what the prices are, but also what payment terms are offered. The standard is 15 days or 30 days, sometimes with a discount for early payment.

If you’re planning on covering your potential liability with a combination of sinking funds and insurance, then you’ll need to see how long you are likely to be waiting for your insurance funds (and think about what you might need to do if they took longer than you’d like to pay out). Another option would be to see if your managed IT support partner offered insurance. This isn’t necessarily the lowest-cost option but it can be the most convenient.

Make sure you understand what is guaranteed and what is best-effort

As always, you need to read any proposed contract very carefully to ensure that you understand it and are happy with it. In particular, you want to pay close attention to what is included as part of the contract, because, by definition, this is all you are guaranteed. Anything else is either “best-effort” or a chargeable extra.

Make a point of checking the process for raising an issue. For example, if an IT support company’s marketing says 24/7/365 service, check the contract to see whether they can actually get you an engineer at any time of day or whether engineers are only available as standard during regular business hours and the rest of the time, you either hope that the first-line helpdesk can resolve the problem or pay extra to get an out-of-hours engineer.

Similarly, check your guaranteed response and resolution times as these may be rather different from what you’d come to expect based on the marketing material.

If you’d like to speak to a reputable IT support partner in Roseville, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.

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