IT Support Yuba City

Finding the right IT support partner in Yuba City

Even though modern IT places a lot of emphasis on proactive maintenance and managed services and basically moving away from the old “break/fix” model of IT, the fact remains that sometimes things break and when they do they need to be fixed. This is when it can be very useful to know that you have the backing of the right IT support partner in Yuba City. Here are some tips on how to find them.

Start by getting everyone agreed on what you need and want

Although it might be tempting just to leave your head of IT to pick your IT support partner in Yuba City, it’s best to speak to all possible stakeholders and get their input. As a minimum, that should make sure everyone is as happy as possible with the final arrangement. It may give you some fresh ideas about how IT is viewed in general and any other changes you need to make.

For example, you may conclude that what you actually need to do is implement or extend a managed services agreement to reduce the number of break/fix issues you experience in the first place. You’ll still probably need and want a good IT support partner in Yuba City to cover your back when they do happen (which they inevitably will from time to time). This is because managed services providers only deal with routine maintenance. Many can also offer break/fix assistance but this will be charged as an extra service.

Use your long-listing process as a chance to do some basic research

It’s fine if you want to create an initial long-list out of every IT support company you can find which operates in Yuba City. Your next step, however, should probably be to do so some basic “hygiene checks” on each of them before deciding whether or not you want to look into them properly to see if they should be included on your short-list.

Basically, you’re looking to see if you can find out who they are, where they are and what they specifically do. Let’s look at this in more detail.

Who they are – What is their background and their current status? If they’re a young company with only a short track record, what do you know about their management?

Where they are – Be very cautious of just going by search results. These can be manipulated to reflect where a company offers services rather than where it is actually based. Check the details on their website and find out their legal base, operational base and infrastructure base. In other words, check where they are incorporated and where they have their staff and their own equipment.

If you are looking for an IT support partner in Yuba City, it’s presumably because you are at least considering the possibility that you might need (or just want) on-site support. If that’s the case, then you’re going to want to stick to companies which genuinely are at least fairly local (for example, you might be fine with an IT support partner in Sacramento), but you’re going to want to avoid companies which are based so far away that they can only offer remote support.

It’s also worth noting that service providers generally insist that their customers agree to be bound by the laws of the service provider’s location, which can be very inconvenient if there is a later dispute.

Develop a robust scoring process for creating your short-list and interview-list

If you’ve done your groundwork thoroughly, then creating your short-list should be fairly straightforward. Your short-listed candidates are essentially companies that look like they meet all your criteria for being able to do the job. If you have a lot of them, you might want to trim down the list to a more manageable number, in which case you’ll need a strategy for picking them, but this is fairly unlikely.

Once you have your short-list, you’ll use it to send requests for proposal and this is where the challenge of scoring fairly really begins. Even if you send out a template for responses, you will probably find that each company will present its response slightly differently because each company is an individual. You will therefore need to have a strategy for treating all these different responses fairly and consistently.

Be realistic about the importance of culture-fit

Finding an IT support partner in Yuba City isn’t just about “hard” facts such as the range of services and prices. It’s also about finding an IT support partner that gels with your organization. This is very much a matter of “feel” and this is absolutely reasonable.

If you’d like to speak to an experienced IT support partner in Yuba City, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.

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