IT Support London:
Top 10 Things To Look For In An IT Support Company

Are you considering a new IT Support company, or a looking for a professional and accredited IT Helpdesk? If so we have some key points that you should consider before engaging your chosen provider.

The below is a list of what we call the Top 10 things to look for when considering your IT provider.

1. Location
   If you are looking for an IT Support company in London, make sure the chosen provider actually has offices in London. Too many companies offer IT Support in London but there offices are so far away that it is impossible to service a business efficiently if downtime is crucial.
2. Availability 24×7
   Make sure your chosen provider has all the required infrastructure to support you both today and tomorrow. They should have a dedicated IT helpdesk offering 24/7 support. Your business never closes so why should the support? They should be highly familiar with disciplines that deal with topics such as change management and configuration management.
3. ITIL Accreditation
   ITIL accredited is an important accreditation as this shows the company has invested in process and procedures to ensure clients receive a high quality end to end service. Without formal accreditations such as ITIL you could spend more time managing your provider than the IT itself.
4. Microsoft Partner Status & other partnership accreditations
   Let’s be honest, most of your infrastructure is in the hands of these guys so if your IT support company doesn’t have an alliance with them, alarm bells should be ringing.
5. Monitoring
   Remote Monitoring, Predictive Monitoring, Big Brother, whatever you want to call it, this technology is essential to ensure the smooth running of your business. Be sure you understand exactly what the chosen IT Support company is actually capable of monitoring. In today’s fast paced technological world, “Always On” is essential and easily achievable. Proactive monitoring is the only way to achieve this.
6. Industry Experience
   Do they have experience in your industry? For example if you were looking for IT Support for Accountants, or IT Support for Recruitment, you should expect and demand that your chosen provider can add value to your business by giving you an insight in to how other people within your sector do things.
7. Company Size
   Ensure that your chosen provider have enough staff to support your needs. Too often we see larger companies (100+) still being looked after by that famous “man on a bike” or “geek in a bedroom”. Make sure your business does not outgrow theirs. Changing IT Support companies is often a costly and timely exercise.
8. Reliable
   Make sure your provider are not the plumbers with leaky taps! Only too often we see suppliers preaching to their clients about the IT and the importance of a good infrastructure but they themselves do not practice this and more often their lack of infrastructure ultimately makes the client suffer e.g. website down.
9. Understand
   Make sure they take the time to not only understand your IT but also your business. IT Support and IT consultancy only work well if they add value to your business. If your IT Support provider does not understand how you work, the IT Support will suffer and you will not receive a return on your investment. Remember if the IT Support element works well then so does your business i.e. increase productivity, and a better service to your clients.
10. Informative
    Make sure your IT provider gives you complete visibility in to their systems by way of having a quality Intranet. An IT Support company should have more than just a “log a ticket system” they should be able to offer dynamic reports detailing the level of service they provide you and how efficient it is. You cannot measure someone’s effectiveness unless you can report on it.

Whilst this is not the A-Z of hiring an IT Support company, it does give you some good guidelines and at least gives you more than half a chance of getting IT right!

IT Support in London is a demanding role to stand up to and making sure you get it right is as important as choosing the software you chose to run your business.

Have you got a story where you hired an IT Support company in London or even an IT Support company out of London, whereby they affected your business? Let us know and share your experience with other users so they can also avoid the perils of hiring the wrong IT Support Company.