5 Questions You Should Hear ‘Yes’ To
As a business owner, you likely carefully vet every employee you hire to work for your business. You inspect their résumé and ask detailed questions during their interview to ensure they are the best fit. This is critical to growing your business and making it as successful as possible, but you shouldn’t solely reserve this practice for potential new hires. You also need to carefully assess any third parties you work with, especially when it comes to your IT needs.
When most business owners attempt to hire an in-house IT team or an MSP, they let the third party’s representative, or salesperson do most of the talking since they’re the experts in the field. In some cases, the owner wants the representative to convince them to do business with their organization. In others, the owner is too afraid to ask questions for fear of sounding uninformed. Failing to ask any questions when hiring an IT expert can put your business in a bad position and make you and your business vulnerable to cybercriminals. An excellent salesperson can sell milk to a cow, so asking relevant questions is crucial to ensuring you get the best IT services for your business needs.
If you’re wondering what questions you should ask when deciding which IT expert to hire, don’t worry! We’re here to help. Here are some simple yes-or-no questions you can ask any IT expert to determine if they offer the best possible support. If they answer no to any of these questions, it might be best to look elsewhere. It’s not worth the risk of experiencing a devastating and expensive network disaster.
Do They Answer Their Phones “Live” And Respond to Support Issues Within an Hour?
One of the most frustrating situations you can experience is needing your IT expert’s help and being unable to reach them promptly. If you are concerned about your network security or another IT need, you should get the assistance you need as soon as possible. It is a huge red flag if the IT expert answers no to this question because that means they work at their own pace instead of being readily available and responsive to your needs.
Do They Insist on Doing Regular Test Restores of Your Backups to Ensure Data Is Not Corrupt and You’re Covered If Disaster Strikes?
Imagine that severe weather knocks out your network and your data appears corrupted when it comes back up. Ideally, you call your IT team, or they already know about the issue. They’ll restore your corrupt or lost data, and everything will proceed as usual. But what happens if the backup fails or your IT team isn’t regularly backing up your data? Some experts may be able to recover your data, but in many cases, you’ll be out of luck, and your business might be in trouble because of it.
Will They Give You Written Documentation Detailing Your Software Licenses, Network Passwords and Hardware Information?
This is vital information, and there’s a reason the IT expert might not want to hand over this information willingly. It keeps them in control of your network and, in many ways, makes them irreplaceable. If they possess all the information and you want to go in a different direction, you’ll likely have to reset everything, which will take time and could cost additional money.
Do They Tell You What They Are Doing in an Easy-To-Understand Manner?
There’s no question about it: cyber security and IT services can get incredibly complicated, and some experts prefer to talk using industry jargon, which is difficult for many business owners to understand. It’s essential to know and fully understand everything the experts are doing to help your business and keep it protected.
Do They Proactively Offer Upgrades and Improvements to Your Services?
The IT landscape is ever evolving. New technologies and developments are introduced daily, and dependable IT experts stay up to date with changes in the industry so they can offer improved services to their clients. You shouldn’t have to wait until disaster strikes to see these improvements implemented in your business.
These are just a few questions you should ask any IT expert you’re considering hiring for your business. If they answer no to any of the above questions, you’ll likely pay for substandard support and open your business up to additional risk.
