Hi, I’m Jack Lincourt from Internet & Telephone. I’m the help desk manager, and today I’d like to speak about the capabilities of a great IT service provider.

Alternative Solutions

Does your managed IT service provider offer you alternate solutions for everything within your company? Do they offer you servers as well as Cloud servers? Do they work on your workstations and your laptops, as well as Mac support? Can they offer hardware support as well as software support? Can they manage your phones? Do they work in telecom? Can they manage your websites? A great service provider should be able to provide all these services for you.

Availability

In today’s world, 24/7 support is mandatory. You have customers, as well as employees, that travel around the world and need support at any hour of the day. If they call in, do they get a live person, or are they getting an auto-attendant? Are they getting an offshore site that might be helping any amount of other customers? Are they actually just getting an answering service? I feel it’s important for them to get a live person that works with you and understands your business, so they can help you directly and not have to ask you a hundred questions before they can even start to assist you.

The Cloud

Everything is moving towards the cloud, because the cloud is the future. On the cloud, everything is backed up. You have access to it anywhere in the world, and you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket on a few servers somewhere, that if they die or you have a power outage, you lose everything. Your IT service provider needs to provide a plan to get you on the cloud within your budget.

So these capabilities may seem basic, but they’re essential for your company. Does your IT service provider offer all of these capabilities? I’m sure they can handle your PCs and maybe your servers, but do they manage your phones? Do they manage your websites? Do they understand telecom services and can they support that? And it’s essential for your company to thrive and for your company to grow. And the only way to do that is if your IT service provider understands your business and helps you grow.