If you’ve just opened a business here in the Los Angeles area, you already know how competitive your specific industry is. L.A. is still one of the busiest business centers in America, and the only way to keep up with competitors is having fail-safe technology.
Hiring a managed service provider is one way to keep your technology under control, though you’re perhaps new to hiring one. It’s time to learn about what to look for in managed services, because it’s comprehensive in what they provide. Even if you’ve already hired an in-house IT team, having a managed service provider as consultants can bring extra security.
Before you hire your IT team, it’s important to vet them and find out what qualities they bring. They cover more angles than you perhaps initially estimated, and looking at their background can tell you so much.
Let’s look at what to scope out while discovering how comprehensive managed services are.
Things to Look for in a Managed Service Provider
Vetting Their Experience
Since those who manage your IT will make sure it all runs efficiently every day, you need to have a team with a proven track record. One with several years (if not decades) of experience is preferable based on how much they’ve encountered in their career. The more problems they’ve had experience solving over the years, the more they can understand what they need to do to manage your technology.
The greatest aspect of consultants is they haven’t worked with just one company for years. They go from one company to the next while gaining unique real-world experiences. A managed service team with at least 5 years of experience will understand technology evolution and see the realities of what businesses face now.
Your business may have unique tech challenges. But IT consultants know what’s best for you based on other companies they’ve worked for with similar structure.
24/7 Monitoring
Any managed service provider not providing constant monitoring on your network isn’t worth your time. In today’s IT world, anything can happen, including on weekends or holidays. Unfortunately, the worst problems can occur during off-hours when in-house technicians aren’t available.
Most managed service teams monitor your system remotely and take care of problems without even having to alert you. A problem occurring late in the evening on a Sunday can frequently get solved by the time you come to work Monday morning.
Flexibility in Solving Problems
Any quality managed services team needs to provide proof of their past track record. In their record, you need to check their flexibility in being able to solve complex problems. As mentioned above, consultants have diverse experience, so any flexible qualities in being able to solve unexpected issues is essential.
Testimonials from other companies they’ve worked for can give you an idea of how they tackled various problems. You want confidence they’ll audit your company and understand your tech needs and business structure. If you’re a small to mid-sized business, this is vital since any downtime from failed IT tech could become financially devastating.
Response Time to Technical Issues
While you want thorough knowledge behind getting your tech problems solved, how fast your managed services team responds to problems needs just as much focus. Again, studying past testimonials can give you a good idea of how fast (and efficient) they solved emergency issues.
Most problems can get solved remotely, though it might require occasional in-person visitations for repair. Having someone there as quickly as possible can pare down how much downtime you’ll face. During a very critical moment (when experiencing an influx of visitors), you want complete assurance in turn-around time.
Contact us here at XO IT Services to learn about our managed services. We guarantee all of the above for small and mid-sized businesses in the L.A. region.
