One of the most important things you will be looking for when evaluating an IT company is the level of support and customer service you would receive. As you probably are aware, most companies promise good support from experienced technicians, but few actually provide the level of support you may expect. This is why it is important to do your research before picking an IT Provider.
If you are already a current client of EarneyIT, you are used to great service but how can you know the level of support is adequate before signing any contracts? These tips will help you navigate your options. Ask for their current SLA / SLE
A Service Level Agreement or Service Level Expectation (SLE / SLA) is a piece of documentation that your IT provider should provide you that clearly states the kind of support your organization can expect after signing a contract. Information in the document should include the maximum response time you can expect, different categories of tickets that determine the urgency of issues, and even consequences if they do not live up to the agreement. If the IT company you are considering doesn’t offer an SLE or SLA, maybe it is time to look elsewhere.
- Ask for References and CALL THEM
When you receive these references, call them. Don’t just ask “Are they good?”, get specific. Ask questions like “What is the average response time to tickets?”, “Can you call them via email, phone, ticketing portal?”, “Does the person on the phone actually help you or do they just make a ticket and someone else reaches out later”. These types of questions for references will help you make a good decision when choosing your next IT Provider.
- Ask how many devices each of their technicians are managing
This tip can tell you how much work is on the technicians and the level of work they are doing. An extremely well-run IT provider with a management team, top of the line tools, well documented systems, and simple yet effective hierarchy for staff can handle between 200 – 250 endpoints (endpoints can be a computer, tablet or server) per technician. Simply said, each technician, not manager or system admin etc, would be able to handle 200-250 devices without the client suffering. These statistics usually work for established organizations with more than 10 employees. Although each company is run differently, if your IT provider is managing more than 200-250 devices per technician, especially if they have less than 10-15 employees, then the level of customer experience you will be receiving may not live up to what you expect.
- Call their help-desk yourself
Head to the IT firm's website, find the support number, and give it a call! Do not just call it once, call multiple times over a month at different times of day and different days of the week. How many times did you get voicemail? Did the person who answered seem willing to help? If you left a voicemail, did you actually get a call back in a reasonable time? Consider the results of this test as a sample of what you would receive as a client. Not happy with the results of the test? Time to look elsewhere.
- Ask the IT provider what they are doing to make their Helpdesk better
If your IT provider is serious about good support, they will be doing something to better their level of support. This can be many things including putting all technicians through a customer service certification, monthly, weekly, or even daily meetings to discuss how to service their customers better or even meeting with clients on an ongoing basis to discuss things that they are doing to better themselves. If the IT provider cannot tell you what they are doing on an ongoing basis to be better, maybe it is time to look elsewhere.
These questions are a great place to start when determining what level of support you will be receiving. If the answers to these questions aren’t ideal, it may be time to explore other options.
At EarneyIT we take support seriously. We provide our SLEs to all clients and promise to make things better when we fall short. Our website provides you with many references and you are encouraged to call them to discuss our level of service. The maximum endpoints per EarneyIT technician is always between 150-200 to ensure you receive the support you expect. We urge you to call our helpdesk to test them out before signing with us. It is our priority to improve our already great helpdesk with ongoing training and certifications in customer service for all our technicians.
