Top Best IT Support Partner in West Sacramento

How to choose the best IT support partner in West Sacramento?

The early stages of finding a good IT support partner in West Sacramento are much like the early stages of choosing any business partner (including employees). You create a detailed job specification, filter a long list down to a shortlist, and then a few interview candidates and then choose the best one. Here are some points you want to check before making a final decision.

Easy To Get the Best IT Support, Partner

1. Where, exactly, are you based?

There are effectively three parts to this question. Where is the company’s legal headquarters (i.e. where is it incorporated)? Where is the company’s main operational base (i.e. where are most of its staff located) and where is its infrastructure located? Ideally, you want the answer to all three questions to be “in West Sacramento”, or, at the very least, in California. That way you’ll be on the same legal page throughout and answering to the same legislators and regulators, hence using local courts.

2. What geographical areas do you cover?

Depending on your situation, this may be a “nice-to-know” or a deal-breaker. If you’re happily settled in one part of the country, then you may be perfectly happy to use an IT support partner who only supports West Sacramento. If, on the other hand, you might have plans to expand, then you may want to think about what that could mean for your relationship with your IT support partner in West Sacramento.

In principle, it could mean absolutely nothing. If you’re just planning on getting some extra office space in another part of the city, then an IT support partner in West Sacramento may still be able to support you, especially since most IT support is remote anyway. If, on the other hand, you’re planning on expanding elsewhere in California or even further afield, then you’d have to think carefully about whether or not you’d be happy with just remote support or with having to make special arrangements for on-premises support.

3. What are your pricing models?

Although IT support traditionally works to a “break/fit model”, the industry as a whole has been picking up some tips from the IT managed services industry. This means that you may now be offered the option of “subscription-based” pricing, in which you are allocated a certain level of support per month (or other agreed period), or even a “managed services” approach when your IT support partner takes on certain recurring tasks.o

You could argue the toss as to whether or not this last option was “genuine” IT support or an IT support company branching out into genuine IT managed services, but for practical purposes, it doesn’t matter, what matters is whether or not you find it useful.

When discussing the pricing models, you also want to find out how and when you’ll be charged. One of the big differences between IT support and other industries is that it is quite common for IT support companies to ask for contracts to be paid in advance, usually monthly, although some companies may also offer quarterly and annual billing plans.

Ad hoc work can only really be billed in arrears and typical payment terms would be anything between 15 and 30 days. Most IT support companies in West Sacramento will support a variety of payment methods, but it’s always wise to check.

4. What exactly is included in each contract?

Even the top tiers of service are going to have limitations, otherwise, the IT support company would have an infinite level of potential exposure and that could put them out of business. That’s fine as long as the vendor is clear about what they are so you can budget and plan accordingly.

5. What is not included in each contract?

This is a good way to double-check anything mentioned previously, not necessarily to “catch out” a vendor. It can just give their memory a push and/or highlight anything you might not have understood from the previous part of the conversation. Again, if anything comes up which might be relevant to you, now is your chance to ask about ad hoc/hourly pricing (or if it is covered in another plan).

6. What are your guaranteed response/resolution times?

These are two questions covering much of the same topic. The key point to remember is that there is a difference between a response and a resolution. A response can be as little as an autogenerated email confirming that your query has been put in a queue. A resolution is exactly what it says, it’s when your problem has been fixed. Both are important and you want guarantees on them, backed up by contractual SLAs.

If you’d like to speak to a reputable IT support partner in West Sacramento, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.

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