Best Managed IT Services Auburn
How to pick the right managed IT services partner?
Deciding to move to managed IT services is generally very easy. It often saves companies time, money, and frustration. Choosing the right IT managed services partner in Auburn can, however, be more of a challenge. With that in mind, here are some tips to help.
1. Spending time on the early stages can pay dividends later on
The more you do upfront to put your own house in good order, define your needs and wants (ranking the latter by priority) and clarify your budget, the easier it will be when you come to the actual selection process. To begin with, this will provide a solid foundation for bringing your initial long list, down to a more manageable shortlist.
When filtering down your initial list of companies, remember that headlines look impressive, but it’s the details that really matter. In other words, be very careful about falling for marketing. Read the text fully and see what the sales points mean in real terms.
For example, the snippet in a search result may say “managed IT services company in Auburn”, but when you look closely, you discover that all this means is that the managed IT services company offers services to companies in Auburn. This is rather different, whether or not it is an issue depends on several factors not least of which is where they are actually located. If they are near Auburn, say in Sacramento, you may be absolutely fine keeping them on your list, if they are on the other side of the country, or in another country, then you might not.
2. You need a robust strategy for analyzing the proposals you will receive
Even though you will (presumably) send the same request for proposal to all the IT managed services companies on your list, the chances are that each company will approach responding in a slightly different way, because companies are as individual as the humans behind them. You will therefore need to analyze the proposals carefully to ensure that you are comparing like with like.
This is particularly important if you’re looking to pay for your IT managed services on a monthly subscription (as is usually the case). What you will generally find is that managed IT services companies will offer tiered subscriptions at different price points and you will need to check exactly what is included at each price point to make a fair comparison between them.
3. Remember to check the details of their customer service
Managed IT services are really about half and half technical skills and customer-service skills. If that seems unlikely, then look at it this way. The job of a managed IT service partner is basically to keep everything running smoothly. That means they will need to communicate your service status to you regularly and draw your attention to anything which could create an issue in the future so that you can take action before it actually starts to harm your business.
They will also need to respond to any questions or issues you raise, which means that they will need an efficient front-line customer-service team plus a solid account-management team. Last but by no means least, a good managed IT services partner will often end up functioning as an unofficial CIO. They will learn your business and be able to make suggestions as to what you could do differently to make technology work better for you.
Ideally, they will also either be able to offer IT support services in Auburn or be able to refer you to a reputable IT support partner in Auburn. The reason for this is that managed IT services only takes care of everyday, predictable tasks, in other words, routine housekeeping. It does not deal with projects or with break/fix situations. Those are passed on either to the client’s in-house IT team or (as is more likely these days) to an IT support team or partner as a chargeable extra service.
4. Always speak to a company representative before you sign a contract
As previously mentioned, if you pick the right managed IT services partner in Auburn, then you can be looking at a very productive, long-term partnership, which can really make your life a whole lot easier. This, however, is only going to happen as long as both of you are comfortable working together right from the start. The best way to judge how you feel about a managed IT services company and its corporate culture is to have a good talk with one of its representatives, so always do this before you sign a contract.
If you’d like to speak to a high-quality managed IT services partner in Auburn, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.
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