Changing your IT Support Company company is not as hard as you may think

Fear of change is the reason why most people put up with bad service and high bills from their IT Support company. It seems the old saying “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”was made up with tech support specifically in mind.

But changing IT support company can actually be easy and stress free. You just need to take a few simple steps which let you take control of your technology and lay the ground for an IT move.

Four simple ways to take control of your IT and prepare for a move

  1. Know your passwords. Ask your tech support company for a list of user names and passwords and store them in a safe place. Also, ask them to let you know every time they make a change and for a full up-to-date list as a fail-safe at least once a year.
  2. Internal Contacts. Make sure at least one person in your business is responsible for reporting problems and liaising with your IT company. This is usually the person who changes user names and passwords when your tech company is not around.
  3. List your technology providers. Most companies use quite a few technology suppliers. A full list of them and a recent bill is worth keeping to hand.

    Example Technology Suppliers

  4. Have an idea of how much support you need. Knowing how much support time you use is crucial to managing your costs. If you don’t have an up to date report ask your current provider for the figures. Then when negotiating with a new provider you will know exactly what you require. We give our clients a breakdown of time used in 15 minute units every month. Your provider should be able to do the same.

Why you should think about moving to TechRelate’s IT Support Service?

Now that you are ready to move your tech support, here are eight reasons for you to move to TechRelate.

This is the bit where I get to show off about how fanatical about support we are @TechRelate.  It is attention to detail that makes the difference and we are detail crazy.

  1. Site images. When supporting a client remotely our system lets engineers view images of the client’s office, equipment and/or building layout. That way support is much more effective.
  2. Label equipment. We think it is vital to attach clear labels to all important equipment. The labels set out the equipment name, description and technical details. This empowers people to carry out vital local checks and reboots so that problems are solved quickly and cheaply.
  3. Network Diagram. We can produce a comprehensive graphical layout of our client’s technology. This helps fast troubleshooting and aids user understanding.
  4. Disaster Recovery checklist. If a client has a total system failure a clear checklist with support contacts details to hand can dramatically improve the chances of recovery.
  5. Speed. The sooner you let your IT support provider know the problem, the sooner your business can be back up to speed. We use advanced monitoring systems that talk through the Internet to every network connected device. So when something goes wrong we are likely to know about it and fix it before clients are even aware there is a problem.
  6. Self-help posters. There are some tasks I carry out every other month but even then I often need to remind myself how to do them. You may sometimes need reminding too. We produce laminated instructions for quick reference to save time and money.
  7. Staff training. We are more than happy to train client’s staff to handle support of their current systems. In fact,we welcome anyone with an interest in what we do.
  8. Change management. We can you put a strategy in place to map out the process for changing a client’s technology system. As companies change or merge these strategies can help a business grow but without disrupting day-to-day work.