Do you Know the IT Industry’s Dirty Little Secret?

You choose a doctor based in part on the fact that he/she has been through medical school and ultimately passed licensing and board certification. That allows for at least a modicum of comfort and confidence. Even the contractor who builds your room addition has to be licensed and is subject to review boards.

That is reassuring, but…

What do you know about the IT industry?

Do you know that short of a generic business license, there is no education, licensing or certification needed to open an IT Support company or a firm that represents itself as a Managed Services Provider (MSP)?

∅
Zilch.
Zero.
Nada.
Bupkis.

That’s the Dirty Little ‘Secret’ of the IT services industry. It’s like what Forrest Gump’s mother said about a how life compares to a box of chocolates:

“You never what you’re gonna get.”

We in business depend on a variety of vendors, no matter the nature of the enterprise. Aside from the standards that you can find just about anywhere, like cleaning or coffee/food services or maintenance, what vendor does every business need? Information Technology.

The person or company that handles your IT support is at least as important as any other vendor – if not more so. Your IT services provider keeps your office and business moving forward. A failure on the part of your Managed Services Provider (MSP) can result in a work stoppage, missed deadlines and potentially lost clientele.

There are certifications of expertise that can voluntarily be shown in Information Technology, but it is an utterly unregulated industry. Virtually anyone can ‘hang out a shingle’ claiming mastery of the IT universe, but we at ITFIRM.COM come to the rescue of far too many of these slapdash ‘IT guys’ to take that seriously.

How to choose IT support?

Here at ITFIRM.COM, we see ‘technicians’ trying to apply for employment with us who know next to nothing. It’s staggering.

So, how do you sort through the chaff to get to the wheat? There’s an old adage about sales prospecting: “You have to dig through a lot of dirt to get to the diamonds.”

What questions to ask an IT company?

Before you ask the first question, bear in mind the importance of paying attention: Watch and listen.

Be wary of IT salespeople who immediately launch into a one-sided ‘tell-sell.’ The best MSPs will concentrate on you first, and then talk about their capabilities. If the candidate for your IT support is pushing Plan A, B or C on you, based only on the number of users, they are more than likely hacks. The best solutions are custom-made and any MSP that treats your needs as fitting into one of their programs does not have your best interests in mind.

Here's what TOP MSPs do:

1: They Will Ask Intelligent Questions and Listen to You

They want to hear about your business, your goals and how work flows through your workplace.
A litigation attorney is geared toward the steps between the initial client consultation and the entering the courtroom with a winning case.
A manufacturer is geared toward the steps between an initial order and transporting the final product.

On a fundamental basis, businesses are similar, but they all have one commonality: computers need to work. The best MSPs want to understand your workflow, any frustrations you have, and how that current model will support the company processes as the business grows.

How do you go about creating and handling increased production?

What ‘new ground’ are you planning to break in terms of their products or services?
How would you like to improve customer service?

Where are your workflow ‘logjams’?

What currently happens when your staff experiences network downtime?

Different questions will ensue, depending on your responses - and they are listening.
The best Managed Services Providers create a custom plan just for you based on what they’ve learned about you.

2: The Best MSPs Are Truly Proactive

‘Proactive’ is a word a lot of people bandy about, but don’t really practice it. Proactivity goes well beyond merely exhibiting core competencies: the proper experience, skills, and certifications necessary to do the job. THOSE attributes need to be a given, but they are just the starting point.

Dig deeper. Never let salespeople go into a canned and rehearsed presentation – these are designed to make you feel that you’ve received the answers you want – when you haven’t. You have to take control of the conversation. Ask about the availability of both onsite and Help Desk remote staff with specific skill sets that are pertinent to your business.

Here’s a simple but revealing question: Have them explain their Proactive versus Reactive methods of support. Lesser competent IT services people will fumble and mumble their way through an unsatisfying answer.

Ask about their internal policies and procedures and their mandate as to their ‘Best Practices’.
The best MSPs will have these in writing and will not be shy or hesitant about sharing them with you.
If the ‘IT Guy’ sitting across from you looks bewildered and falls back into basic selling ‘talking points’, like “We promise a one hour turnaround time”, then you are talking to the wrong guy, someone who is not listening to you. Get a Pro in there.

The best MSPs have a mentality/mindset that is a world away from the ‘Break & Fix’ (B&F) IT guys who overpopulate the industry. B&F won’t work for you, and if they were truly proactive, these IT guys would know it doesn’t work for them, either.

A top-notch MSP will earn your attention by sharing the vision they implement every day: The same forward-looking practices that keep you up and running, the practices that solve an issue the first time, which prevents foreseeable issues within your network. This is key, because it keeps their hours working on your network to a minimum. The MSP saves money, and you save money.

3: Consistency
If an IT candidate cannot immediately spell out and show you their Best Practices and procedures, you cannot expect consistency from them. Consistency of quality is based on having a set of rules they live by, which are ingrained and come as ‘second nature’ to the entire staff. The best MSPs never ‘wing it.’

4: The Will be Your Virtual CIO

Ideally, an MSP should be acting as your virtual Chief Information Officer. Proactiveness goes well beyond knowing the storage capacity in your server or the dates when hardware and software will become obsolete, it’s about how to recognize, test, and implement new technologies which can improve every aspect of your company, not just those areas dealing with IT.

It should feel like your Managed IT services firm is just down the hall from your office, almost like a coworker. You need to have both repair/maintenance-based communication, but casual as well. If you see an emerging technology on the news that looks like it could help your company, you need an easy conduit to toss the idea around with your virtual CIO.

The concept of gong ‘above and beyond’ is not an exception for the best MSPs – it’s an everyday activity, all part of being your technology partner.

5: What ‘Bare Minimum’ Services Should Your MSP Offer?

Under the umbrella of their fixed price per month, the MSP needs to provide:

1. Unlimited Help Desk
2. Unlimited on site for troubleshooting and repair
3. Network & Server Optimization
4. IT Budgeting & Road Map
5. Cybersecurity Strategy based on current equipment and any necessary upgrades
6. Vendor Management
7. Proactive monitoring
8. Reporting

All of those items need to be precisely spelled out in a Master Service Agreement (MSA).

What do you mean by vendor management?

Referring back to #6 above, vendor management means you don’t have to juggle vendors when a technology issue appears. No matter who the vendor is – Internet, VoIP phones, printers, or the specific software programs your company uses, they all fall under the Big Tent of Electronic Communications, and we, the MSP, are the Ringmaster.

We at ITFIRM.COM manage all of your vendors under our umbrella when necessary to keep the network humming along. The internet’s out? WE make the calls and keep you informed. No more staff members caught in the middle, juggling phones, not knowing what to do next. That’s a recipe for chaos and longer downtime than is necessary. We speak your vendors’ lingo, and we will sort issues out much faster.

No matter what technologies you use in your business; in the electronic communications arena the MSP must manage your entire multi-vendor and multi-device environment. The best MSPs will never tell you “That’s not our problem. You have to call them.” WE will call them.

ALWAYS ask a prospective MSP if they are truly ‘vendor neutral.’ The best MSPs have many relationships with their own ‘behind the scenes’ technology vendors but will forgo any of these pre-existing relationships to bring you only the technologies that will provide the best results for your company.

For example, ITFIRM.COM partners with both Microsoft and Google, so if you’re trying to figure out if Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace suits your business better, we have both ponies in that race, and the best one will win - based on your needs.

How to be a True Technology Partner

To make this Technology Tango work, it takes both of you.

Select an MSP that you can trust, and have faith in their abilities, work practices and advice. This trust builds over time. As they say, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” If you are considering closing a deal with an MSP and you still have even a single reservation, your work is not done. Be sure.

Whatever MSP you choose must be upfront, open, honest, with every fact at their fingertips: from their ‘Company Culture’ to their Policies, Procedures and ‘Best Practices.’ They need to know where you are taking your company and be enthusiastic about being an integral component in helping you achieve your goals now, and in the future.