10 Questions To Ask When Choosing An Outsourcing IT Help Desk Provider

Your IT infrastructure is the most crucial component of your business. It facilitates smooth workflow, seamless collaboration between different departments, and efficient delivery of services.

With your business growing rapidly, there will be an increased burden on your internal IT teams. A high number of tickets, low-resolution rate, and long waiting times can frustrate your users.

That’s where IT support steps in.

According to Transparency market research, the outsourced IT service desk market is expected to grow to 11 USD billion by 2023. The IT experts can handle all your IT operations or work with your in-house team to boost your company’s network performance.

10 Questions To Ask Before Choosing An Outsourcing IT Help Desk Provider

Top 10 questions you must ask any Outsourced IT help desk service provider before hiring them. Here is what they listed out for us.

• What’s Your Experience in the IT Help Desk Industry?

Outsourcing the IT help desk is a long-term commitment. So, before you hire, you must be certain that the company has adequate experience in this industry.

Every business has unique requirements. For instance, a healthcare sector or a bank must work with an IT company that offers technical support and the highest level of security. They must implement two-factor authentication, data encryption, and security programs, like a firewall, to protect your organization from security breaches.

• What Level of Support do You Offer?

A reputable IT help desk company offers a comprehensive support plan. They categorize their staff into different tiers—level 1, level 2, level 3, and so on. If your issue is minor, the staff at the bottom tier will be assigned your ticket.

If it’s a complex issue, the help desk will connect you to a highly-qualified agent. An IT company has the resources and a trained workforce to resolve technical issues of all types and difficulty levels.

While the team will handle most problems remotely, it’s good to ask if they offer some on-site support. This will come in handy when you have an emergency request that requires in-person assistance.

• Do You Offer SLA?

SLAs or Service Level Agreements are the legal contracts that explain the level of service you can expect from your technical team. Failure to fulfill the SLAs can result in penalties or contract termination.

SLAs are designed to protect the client’s and service provider’s interests. You should work with a company that offers flexibility in this contract. This guarantees that your IT service provider will increase the level of support when your business scales.

Ask your IT provider what elements are included in the SLA, does it cover all important metrics, and whether it’s flexible.

• Can You talk to their Existing or Previous Clients?

References are important in all service-based industries. You can go over the testimonials and customer reviews to gather written evidence, but those are not enough. You must get in touch with businesses they have served before.

Contacting their existing or previous clients allow you to get detailed insights into their technical specialty and overall service. Ask questions like, were you completely satisfied with the IT provider? Did you face any challenges? What level of support do they offer? What are their response time and resolution rate?

• Do You Offer a Self-Service Portal?

Those FAQ pages, blogs, and other self-service portals come in handy when there’s a long queue of users waiting for their issues to be resolved. Your team can use these portals for assistance with small issues.

This will save your staff time waiting for a response from the IT support provider. It’s also quite convenient for the IT team to manage small issues without assigning them to an agent.

• What Security Services Do You Provide?

The standard IT service package comes with a cybersecurity component. Given the increasing number of cybercrimes, security has become an essential part of your IT infrastructure.

Your help desk company will offer a firewall program, SWGs, incident response, data backup, data encryption and authorization, and other security tools to protect your private network. Depending on your industry, your outsourced IT company might offer advanced protection from cyber threats.

• Do You Offer 24/7 Support?

Technical issues can crop up at any time. With your teams working remotely, you never know which employee will experience what technical problem. As people have chosen flexible work schedules, your IT team should also be available 24/7 to offer support as and when required.

Ask your IT providers if they work outside your business hours. Do they help their clients on national holidays? Or, how do they handle emergency security issues?

• Do You Have Experience Working with Our Core Systems?

Your IT infrastructure might be different from that of your competitors. For example, your desktops, PCs, smartphones, IoT-enabled devices, routers, and software systems might require an IT specialist that understands your services.

For example, those working in a marketing agency might mostly use Apple hardware. So, the help desk company you choose must be capable of handling Mac issues flawlessly.

• Do You Offer Reports?

Before hiring, ask if the IT company will create performance reports regularly. Detailed reports on your IT performance will clearly show how your issues are being handled, the response rate, the resolution rate, and other metrics. It also shows whether your IT team has been delivering the services they promised in the SLA.

• Do You Offer Multi-Channel Support?

This is incredibly important if you have a remote workforce. People working from different locations and time zones might use varying methods of communication to request support.

Some might prefer emails. Some want quick assistance, so they will join the live chat with an IT agent. Some may call it the IT company. Whatever they choose, your IT agents must be willing to offer help through different channels.

Bottom Line

Installing the latest technology give your business a competitive edge over your rivals, but even the most popular and well-designed technology tends to face bugs. Although some companies have an in-house team to handle IT operations, they are often inefficient in fulfilling the organization’s ever-changing help desk requirements. So, hire a professional IT help desk provider and streamline your IT operations.