Small businesses focus on their own organization and their own industry. That often comes hand in hand with overlooking effective technology solutions and practices. It is especially true when small organizations often don’t have the means, the resources, nor the will to keep up with latest computer developments, malicious security threats, or even practical computer tips. That is why inevitably most small businesses often make common IT mistakes.
And because most small business owners are running their organizations within their own industries, computer technology, turning to professionals for IT support needs is of tremendous help. How to know if you are choosing IT support that is right for your business?
Here’s a look at most common choices that turn out to be mistakes.
7 choices small business owners make that lead to inadequate Technical Support
These are examples of poor, counter-productive IT support, business administration, and information technology investment choices.
Mistake #1. Hardware or Software Manufacturer’s Helpdesk
Many organizations feel their hardware or software manufacturer’s helpdesk should be sufficient, but it presents two-fold problem: one, vendors’ solution to many problems is to just run a re-installation, that may result in the loss of business’ data: their job is to ensure that hardware or software runs as it should and not to protect your data. Often, the issue can be interdependent among different “moving parts”, and vendors typically do not cooperate with each other when it comes to tech support.
Mistake #2. “Big store” service division
Of course, on occasion, you may get a good break-fix service from the big store chain tech service. But overall, relying on that type of support typically means never seeing the same tech support staff, and often it would be an undereducated and inexperienced technician.
Mistake #3. “Side job” technician
Some businesses rely on technology students or the local “computer guy” to provide computer support.Because of other commitments they have in their lives, lack of availability of such individuals, and often a lack of their expertise it can put your business at risk when systems underperform or fail.
Mistake #4. “In-house computer guru”
Some businesses often choose to rely upon an employee whose primary job description is related to the core business, but she or he is “into computers”; or the boss’s neighbor’s self-proclaimed computer-guru-friend who can come after work to fix what’s broken. While they mean well, and it is certainly possible they know a lot about computers, does that make them qualified to provide professional IT support services for a professional organization? Studying anatomy and practicing a certain type of treatments and medicine does not qualify a masseuse or a dentist to practice as a heart surgeon. Would you call a masseuse or a dentist when you have a heart attack? No. Then why would you do use inadequate support when it comes to computers? Dependence on insufficient tech support leads to ill-advised technology decisions and poor support when mission-critical systems perform too slow or fail altogether.
Related: 5 Signs your Small Business needs a full-time IT manager
Mistake #5. Frequent “Yellow Book Budget Special”.
Some businesses realize they need professional help, and they don’t know where to turn, especially on a tight budget. So the boss would empower someone to “make phone calls” and “get quotes” and often going with the cheapest hourly rate company and not most qualified company. That also leads to disappointment in services and looking for the new tech service next time around, creating a cycle of poor tech support.
Mistake #6. “We’ll call you when we need you” approach.
In an effort to spend as little as possible, businesses expect that they would need IT support only when something breaks, without lining up a proper ongoing maintenance plan. Break-fix only model often leads to missed or improper updates or upgrades, and that leads the way to further problems, from malware and viruses to system failure in the future. In those cases, a service call to repair the damage could turn out to be far more expensive than a proper monthly maintenance plan would be…
Related: What makes Managed Services different from “traditional tech support”?
Mistake #7. Underestimating the true need of the business computer network:
Mistake #6 above, where people often compare computers with cars, thinking that “buying into” computer network maintenance is not for them, and believing that they can just “bring the car to the mechanic”, or bring a technician to the computer only when something is already broken, usually stems from misunderstanding of the true, complex needs of business computer networks. Instead, they need to be looking at their whole computer system as a living organism, perhaps a human body with inter-dependent organs and processes that a person relies on in order to live. Computer service should not be compared to mechanics, nor doctors, but rather a spectrum of a healthy system support. For a human body that would include nutrition, exercise, regular check-ups, healthy regime maintenance, correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment of any conditions, and so on.
Just like a person should take care of their body, their health and their being from multiple fronts, and not fall for “I’ll get rushed to ER if I have a heart attack, so I don’t need to do anything else” routine, so should the network being taken care of properly and on an ongoing basis, and not just when the whole computer network is down and critical failure occurs.
You need to treat your business computer network as a living organism, and provide it with a full line of support so it keeps on ticking!
Every small business needs and deserves professional, reliable technology partners.
Once qualified IT consulting experts are familiar with your small business needs, adequate and appropriate services and solutions are recommended and deployed by professionals. As an outcome of good tech decisions, your business operations will be supported by more cost-effective and more efficient computer network, resulting in more profitable operations for you.
Does your business have a professional, reliable Tech Support?
If you need to break free from a bad, unreliable IT support provider, and if you are not sure where to start – give us a call. We will provide you with a consultation, guide you through this process to minimize the impact of the breakaway on your business, and of course, we will keep it confidential.
You can call us directly right now at (855) 551-7760 to talk to talk one of our specialists, request a call above, or fill out the form to your right so we can send you more information to start a conversation.
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