Responsibilities Of Your IT Company
On a regular basis, we get calls from dental practices looking for a better quality of IT support. They’ve been working with their current provider for years, and have finally gotten fed up with the ongoing problems.
You wouldn’t believe some of the horror stories we hear, and some of the messes we see in server closets, under desks, and on their systems in dental offices.
The question is: are you getting the level of service you need from your IT support? If you’ve been with them for a while, it’s easy to get complacent. It’s easy to go with that old assumption – “better the devil you know than the one you don’t”.
Allow us to give you some perspective…
What Should Your IT Company Be Doing For You?
If you’re IT company isn’t delivering these five key service features, then you deserve to move on to an IT company that will:
- Support Services
These are the traditional Help Desk features, such as a helpline, ticketed support, or even an online support portal. Support services get offered in tiered models, typically provided in blocks of hours or unlimited time frames. Layered models regularly get offered in bundled, On-Demand or On-Site, support packages. - Cloud Infrastructure
Moving to the cloud is as necessary as it is challenging.With assistance from your IT company, your dental practice’s team should be able to harness the strategic advantages offered by the cloud — efficiency, agility, and scalability — without taking on any risks that come with a poorly planned and executed migration.
Your IT company should be able to manage cloud infrastructure by standardizing interactions between cloud environments. It also allows greater control over specific services to outsource while achieving interoperable cloud infrastructure management between consumers and service providers.
- Monitoring & Management
Your IT company should be monitoring your network and systems around the clock via an RMM platform, both to address any issues that occur, but also to gather data that helps you improve the infrastructure, optimize performance, and reduce costs. - Network & Infrastructure Management
Often the least thought of aspect of an IT infrastructure, the network is just as vital as any other part – why? Because it’s everything. Both literally and otherwise, the network ties everything together, and by definition, includes all aspects of the environment. That’s why your IT support needs to be able to support it. - Cybersecurity Services
Perhaps more than any other IT service that you could have managed, security is likely the most valuable. Unlike printers or communications, security requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance, all of which can best be delivered as a managed function.Your IT support should be able to deliver a range of cybersecurity solutions and services. The “defense-in-depth” functions include 24/7 monitoring and management of firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Your IT company should also be able to respond to emergencies, performs security assessments and security audits, oversees patch management and upgrades.
Is Your IT Company Doing Enough?
You need to do your homework before signing on the dotted line with an IT company. It’s critical to make sure they can do everything you need them to, that you know how much you’ll be paying, what’s included, and what the terms of the contract are. That way, you can identify obstacles while you’re still in a position to negotiate or find different IT support to work with.
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