How to find the Right Managed IT Service Provider

Tech Support and Helpdesk

MSPs work with your business and take on a managerial role in your IT operations. In order for your collaboration to run smoothly and yield great results, it is important that your MSP is readily available to answer your questions and guide you through any IT-related tasks. Our Northwest IT engineers are not only well trained and knowledgeable in IT but have also accumulated great customer service experience over their 20+ years in business. They are easy to communicate with and provide you the support that you need, whenever you need it. Often times you will not only get your technological issue resolved but also be educated on how to avoid such issues in the future. It is in our best interest to make sure that your IT operations run smoothly and you know what is going on “behind the scenes” of your business technology systems.

Disaster Recovery Strategies

Disaster recovery strategies are very important in any business. Sometimes unforeseen, unexpected natural disasters, or even simple human error mishaps, can cause havoc, downtime or worse. It is crucial for businesses to be able to recover important data, especially files that they heavily rely on. An MSP’s overarching role is ensuring that your IT functions are working and available at all times. Hence, MSP’s should have processes in place to keep everything in order and be equipped with strategies in case disaster strikes. Whether in the event of a security breach or network problem, our Northwest IT team is there to help you put out fires, avoid such incidents in the future, and make sure your data is safe and secure.

Maintenance Efforts

Maintenance efforts are required to keep your technologies current and in their best-performing state. Professional MSPs don’t run on a break-and-fix model; instead, they are more proactive than reactive. This means that maintenance of your IT infrastructure is at the top of their priorities and is typically performed on a regular basis. While some MSP’s have more solid maintenance efforts than others, here at Northwest IT Company, routine monitoring and networking maintenance is second nature. Maintenance and systems updates come as no surprise to our clients. We schedule maintenance in advance and inform our clients of such activities so they are well aware and are not surprised to notice updated versions of their systems, as on a need-to-need basis.

Response Time

Your MSP should be on top of your IT operations and ensure that it is functioning optimally at all times. With this responsibility also comes the need for them to be quick in responding to issues and resolving downtime.

Make sure that when looking for an MSP, you are considering how efficient they are in communications and how quick they are to act. This will give you a good idea of how well they can manage your IT functions and save you from expensive issues. At Northwest IT Company, making sure our clients’ businesses are up and running is our top priority. Although we take careful measures to make sure your business avoids emergency situations in the first place, we are always ready to respond to your emergencies before they escalate further. To eliminate issues that may cause downtime and other problems, we are always on call, responding to our clients’ questions and concerns on weekdays, weekends and even holidays. Give us a call today! Let’s chat!

Scalability

The main goal of your MSP should be to ensure your IT systems are growing with your business and meeting your changing needs. With that, your provider should be able to adapt to both your short-term and long-term goals and provide services that scale with your business. Ensuring this early on will help you avoid the hassle of having to change your MSP in the future if your business needs have outgrown them.

When our engineers at Northwest IT Company are not taking care of their clients, they spend time focusing on their own research and development. Our engineers stay up-to-date with the current technological advancements so that they will have the proper tools and knowledge to pass onto their clients.

Security

With growing technological advancements, there have also been growing concerns of data breach, hacks, blackmail, and even ransomware attacks. The most important promise your MSP can make is to ensure that your IT operations and all of your data are secure. Make sure that your provider can present you with concrete plans for the security of your infrastructure and company data.

Give us a call today and ask us about how we plan to protect and store your sensitive information and learn about our protocols when it comes to proactively keeping your IT systems secure.

SLA Coverage

MSPs operate under a service-level agreement (SLA) that outlines all the services they are bound to provide you. While some MSP companies operate on a cookie-cutter structure, meaning, they offer same services to their clients, we at Northwest IT Company take time to customize your IT services. Upon connecting with a new client, you will get a chance to speak with our tier-three engineer who will ask you specific questions related to your company’s IT coordination. Once our engineer with get a good idea of what your IT infrastructure looks like, he will compile a customized SLA to fit your specific IT needs. Your job will be to read through it carefully to make sure that all the terms are favorable for your business.