Do you want to save your business time, money, and headaches from glitchy technology?

The solution is outsourcing your IT support. The benefits of outsourcing your IT are many, especially for small and medium-sized businesses!

Unfortunately, many small businesses balk at the thought of outsourcing their IT support. Many often wonder how an outside IT company can offer any time and money savings. This leads to many IT support misconceptions that are causing small businesses more harm than good.

There is a seemingly endless list of misconceptions surrounding the best types of IT support. There are, however, several common ones that nearly every small or medium-sized business had once believed.

Are you a small business that is wary about outsourcing your IT? Check out these four common IT support misconceptions to learn how outsourcing your IT support can help save your business!

1. Managed IT Support Is Too Expensive

The all-too-common IT support misconception is the belief that outsourcing your IT department will cost you more money. This simply is not true. Most managed service providers will save businesses anywhere from 25 to 75 percent on their IT support costs.

Here are a few facts on how outsourcing your IT support will save you money.

Your Internal IT Support is Expensive

Some small businesses have an internal IT support department. This is great but expensive. You must spend time interviewing, hiring, and training new IT support. Once hired, you need to add them to payroll and offer health insurance and other benefits.

As a business owner, you will need to manage and direct your internal IT team. Hiring and managing a variety of employees is exhausting, time-consuming, and expensive.

Using IT Only When You Have an Issue

Many small businesses believe it is more cost-efficient to use IT when something goes wrong. Yes, you will save money by not having to hire or pay someone to manage your technology around the clock.

If your computers and servers are working fine most of the time, why do you need continual IT support? Because things do go wrong.

When your tech starts acting up, you will end up paying much more for an IT service to fix it. You will also have to wait longer causing you to lose valuable work time.

Remote IT support will be able to monitor your servers and tech to prevent any potentially harmful problems. Should a virus or malfunction occur, you will have a reliable IT professional readily available to help you out as soon as possible. You no longer need to waste work time waiting for tech support.

The best part is most of these costs are already included in the monthly or yearly service costs. Depending on the IT support you choose, any out-of-pocket costs will be much lower than going to your local break/fix repair shop.

2. Internal IT Support Is Faster & More Reliable

When you have your own IT department on-hand, your support will be faster and more reliable, right? They may be physically closer but that does not necessarily mean they are faster or more reliable.

IT support services can offer support, perform repairs, and configure software remotely. With approved software, your outsourced IT professionals can log in, access your desktop or server remotely, and fix it. This is a much faster process than having your IT person physically come to your computer and fix it on-the-spot.

This leads to another popular question, “what if my business needs someone onsite to repair a piece of tech?” Most IT support services have a staff of IT specialists who can come on-site for an emergency or for general services. Onsite visits and emergency response are usually included in the IT contract meaning you will not have to pay extra.

Quality Reliability

Another fear small business has about outsourced IT support is competition. They will need to fight against other clients to receive quality care and attention. Some smaller businesses believe their IT company will prioritize larger businesses first.

Fortunately, these misconceptions regarding reliability are not true.

Every reputable IT support service provider includes Service Level Agreements (SLAs). These SLAs specify the level and quality of services you should expect from your IT support service. This includes IT support’s responsibilities, availability, how to fix items, and timeframes.

A major benefit of working with external IT support is your small business will have access to a whole group of IT specialists. Some have specialized training for networking. Others will have the skills necessary for troubleshooting software.

With an internal IT department, you will have limited access to IT specialists based on your IT department’s skills. Internal IT professionals usually have a broader but shallower skillset. Some solutions will take longer to fix if your IT staff does not have the experience or knowledge about a specific problem.

Professional Experience

External IT support services also have more professional experience in managing clients. They have the proper resources to handle several problems happening to multiple users at the same time.

Sometimes, an IT professional does not have the skills or experience fixing a problem. External IT services can escalate the problem to the appropriate person who can find a solution. Oftentimes, an internal IT department does not have the staff or resources to fix the issue which costs your business valuable work time.

3. External IT Puts a Business at Risk for Non-Compliance

The traditional IT model is to have an IT person or team onsite and readily available to help when technology starts getting glitchy. As employees of your business, they follow strict expectations and non-disclosure agreements. You can watch them first-hand to ensure the security of your company’s sensitive information.

The only advantage is you can personally screen, interview, and hire IT staff you feel are reputable and honest. Small businesses often believe an outsourced IT provider will put the business at risk for non-compliance. Can an external IT support provider follow similar security and compliance protocols?

The answer is a resounding yes. Every reputable IT support specialist undergoes careful screening during the hiring process. The IT company carefully monitors its staff as they work. This ensures they follow all security protocols when working with clients in highly regulated industries.

IT professionals understand your need to follow your industry’s changing regulations. Creditable IT support service providers have experience working with clients in many highly regulated industries. They will help you find the right technology solutions to ensure quality security and meet your compliance standards.

4. Managed IT Services Only Help When Things Go Wrong

Technology problems happen when you least expect it. Having a team of IT professionals readily available when things go wrong is essential to your business. What is equally important is having the ability to anticipate potential issues and prevent them from occurring.

There is a misconception floating around that external IT support only offers solutions for break/fix issues. Finding solutions to unforeseen tech issues is only a small part of what IT support has to offer. 

IT support services offer a complete support system for managing all technology issues. They provide proactive solutions such as system monitoring. This ensures your servers, computers, and security software are running smoothly 24-hours per day, 7 days a week.

IT providers will run deep system checks and tests every week, once per month, or every quarter to ensure everything is running as it should. Your external IT support will take care of any updates or security changes without interrupting your workday.

More importantly IT support services should provide strategic direction and provide project services that meet scope and timeline objectives that otherwise go unaccountable and delayed by internal IT.

Your business will have peace of mind knowing your technology and applications are always running smoothly. Should an issue arise, an external IT team will resolve the issue quickly and efficiently to prevent you from losing valuable work time.

Full Integrated Management

Reputable IT support services will offer you their full support. They will go beyond managing your technology and security by becoming a part of your business team.

They will offer services that bring their strategic team member alongside your business leaders. Integrating IT vision and strategy with business objectives will propel your business forward and improve your ability to meet your goals.

IT providers should offer their full support to go beyond just your technology. Look for reputable IT support offering to improve your business practices and functional requirements. They should teach you how to get the most out of your technology and tools.

Find the Best IT Support Today

Finding the best IT support for your business will optimize your business’s workflow while saving you precious time and money. With the right IT support, you will have a team of highly skilled professionals on your side to keep your business running at its best!

Are you ready to make the switch? Let us know and we will help you find the perfect technology solutions for business today.