IT / Network Support Services GTA

6 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Tech Support Team

6 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Tech Support Team

As a business owner, you rely heavily on your IT’s performance to keep your operations running smoothly. As such, hiring the right IT support company in Toronto is a daunting task, especially if you’re not well-versed in technology. The two most important factors that inform the type of IT expertise you need are the scope of your operations and how vital a role technology plays in that business plan.

To ensure that your IT earns its keep and sets your business in good stead, here are 6 questions to ask yourself before investing in a tech support team.

1. Which areas of my IT need the most attention?

Just as no two snowflakes are alike, the same goes for businesses. Before you invest any resources into a tech team, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the services that a provider offers. For instance, you might prioritize cloud networking solutions for your business but the IT team you have your eye on only provides data recovery services. To mitigate this situation, you might consider hiring more than one IT team to cater to the different facets of your technology, however, that isn’t the wisest decision.

You will not only end up unnecessarily denting your finances but also create an asynchronous situation where each providers’ services conflict with rather than complement the other. This is why initial consultations are key for you and your provider to discuss the exact nature of the service you are looking to enlist and whether or not they can expertly supply the same. The right IT consultant will leave no stone unturned to understand your business’s unique pain points and develop solutions that will build a robust IT infrastructure.

2. Should I hire a remote or an in-house team?

Another major must-have factor is deciding between a remote or in-house team. This decision is not one that can be taken lightly as it is dependent on a variety of key aspects such as the scope and scale of your business operations, your budget and the expanse of and reliance on your current IT infrastructure. Here, the size of your business determines what will work best for you. Small companies usually do not have a consistent budget to maintain an in-house team and would prefer to call upon offshore or remote support as the situation demands. This approach isn’t optimal should a crisis arise as the business will have to spend valuable time explaining the situation to the team before it can expect to see damage control tactics being carried out. However, bigger companies would much rather not chance it. These often have a designated in-house support team – one that is extremely familiar with the hitches and pain points of the company’s IT infrastructure. This experience with the business will help the tech team offer networking, software, hardware, data backup support, disaster recovery, remote monitoring, risk assessment and cloud computing, as swiftly as possible.

3. Will full-service, product-specific or one-off support be the best for me?

This factor piggybacks on its predecessor. Given that investing in a qualified and reliable tech team is a priority, you will also need to carefully consider whether you need a full-service department or one-off services. If you are a small business owner with limited personnel under your wing, there is no reason to splurge on a full-service team. There are plenty of reliable tech companies that will offer professional-grade technical support for individual recurring services – be they product related – or for one-off IT support.

A majority of SMEs find that curating their level of services is incredibly cost-effective. Self-employed people and micro-businesses will also greatly benefit from this seeing as the scale of their operations requires occasional tech support. If, on the other hand, your business warrants investing in product-related support on a weekly basis, you can accordingly select those solutions that will enable you to combine leased hardware maintenance plans with one-off services. Full-service support usually comes into play if you have frequent issues regarding administrative controls, data backups and require system maintenance and monitoring.

4. What are the operating and associated costs of managing my IT systems?

Your budget is always a leading component when investing in an IT team. Pricing models may widely vary depending on your provider’s services. Besides general support, some solutions also factor in email and antivirus support, leading to a very pricey and feature-rich plan, while others offer a la carte solutions. It’s very important to look for a plan that does not end up holding you hostage and costing you way more than you anticipated. Sometimes, one-off services are costlier than general plans that bundle up unlimited services. With unlimited services, you and your tech team are always on the same page and there are no surprises. After browsing through a list of tech companies, it’s important to do a side-by-side comparison of IT packages as far as features and prices are concerned. Make a mental note to pay only for what you need and not get carried away with lofty promises from a prospective IT support service.

5. Does security really have to be at the top of my priority list?

In our vastly populated and ever-growing digital arena, security threats, information theft, hacking, phishing attacks and confidentiality infringements are rampant. These often pose a severe risk to your ongoing operations and can even lead to a catastrophic loss of data. Security should, therefore, be your primary concern. A good IT provider will discuss with you wireless security, password protection, firewalls and malware right at the very outset. The solutions they offer should prioritize the prevention of intrusive bots and other automated codes as well as maintain the health and integrity of your IT infrastructure as a whole to make it thoroughly invincible.

6. Should I do any other research before recruiting an IT team?

Nothing is more crucial than hiring a company that is reliable, qualified and respected. With a surge in the demand for managed IT services, there have been plenty of inexperienced market players to join the scene without having the right knowledge about the field. To make sure you’re not getting saddled with a tech team such as this, do a little research into the company’s history to see how long they’ve been around. Your ultimate goal is to recruit a team with good client retention and a predictable pricing model – that way you can plan your budget accordingly and not be in store for any surprises. Moreover, go for a company that doesn’t rely on third party support as far as software and hardware are concerned. The right team will have access to the backend directly and will also come with a fully-staffed and professional command centre.

If Only There Was a Way To Get Your IT to Perform at its Peak

Turns out, there is! It’s as easy as picking up a phone and calling Tech Support Toronto at (416) 250-1040. We’re a fully-fledged managed IT services company that offers powerful and affordable IT solutions. We approach your unique tech issues with an expert eye to ensure that you enjoy a robust IT infrastructure, with network downtimes being a thing of the past!

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