Top 10 reasons why Businesses in Suffolk want to switch to a new IT Support Partner

Ipswich based Corbel undertook a survey of their customers on what it was that made them act when reviewing their IT Support arrangements. This article details the top 10 reasons why businesses in Ipswich, Felixstowe, Stowmarket, and the surrounding Suffolk area wanted to make the switch to a new and improved IT Support Partner.

1. There is bad communication

This can cover quite a few different issues, from not letting you know when updates are taking place, or not returning your calls when promised, or taking too long to acknowledge problems, or simply not getting back to you when they say they will.

2. You’re not seeing business results

Return on investment has never been more important. You ideally want to know and understand what benefit your IT partner brings to your business. Your IT partner should work with you on a detailed IT strategy that addresses your business goals.

3. Your IT Support partner confuses you with tech talk

If technology wasn’t complex, then we would all be taking care of our own business infrastructure without a problem. However, the truth is the reverse, its full of acronyms, strange words and concepts and everything changes at breakneck speed. It can be a complete minefield if you don’t know what you are doing and if you haven’t received the right training.

A sign of a good IT Support partner is that they make the complicated simple, and even better make it sound easy. They take the time to explain things to you without sounding like they are speaking another language.

4. They don’t take Cyber Security seriously

Your eyes are not deceiving you, you read that correctly. Your IT Support partners job is to keep your data safe and secure and make sure their business is run with the same principles.

If your IT Support Provider does not make cyber security a priority this should be a big red flag. They should be keeping you educated on the latest scams and threats so they can keep you fully up to speed.

5. You’re not learning

You don’t need to be an expert in IT as you are paying your partner to do that for you. However, there should be an element of learning when you partner with an IT company.

A good example of this is that you need to be cyber aware on how to avoid scams and know how to keep your valuable data protected.

If you are told “let us worry about cyber security” it should ring alarm bells. Alongside cyber security from your IT support company, you also need to be aware of how to keep your organisation safe from a potential data breach.

It is also important that your IT Support partner explains what they’re doing. You want to have a good understanding of how your infrastructure works and how that relates to your key business processes and services.

6. Your IT Support partner is not flexible

“Sorry – we can’t cover that for you.”

We don’t cover that, suggests a lack of concern for your business and that’s not what a true IT partner is about. A IT partner is always working with you, looking at ways to improve your data security, your network, and your infrastructure. A one size fits all approach doesn’t always work.

7. Things are taking too long to resolve

Sometimes IT issues can be complicated and cannot always be fixed immediately. Some problems take a while to get to the bottom of, other issues are rare and may take extra time for diagnostic work. In these situations, good communication is key.

It may possibly take a while to see a resolution, but if your IT support partner is keeping communication strong at each step, you’re confident it’s in hand and moving in the right direction. Although, if your support request is still awaiting a response four days later… you’ve got an issue.

This is information technology we’re discussing. It goes wrong. It doesn’t always work in the ideal way. But, you absolutely should not be facing problem after problem and waiting days to have issues resolved. You should not face silence when you need assistance. All that waiting means disruption for your business.

8. You have outgrown your IT Support partner

This isn’t necessarily a terrible reason to switch IT support partners. It happens that your business grows to large for a smaller IT company to deal with. This can be good news for you. The tricky part is knowing when to make the switch. Especially when you’re working with a business that you like. 

It’s worth bearing in mind that if:

• Your IT support requests aren’t being reacted to as quickly as you need them to be
• Or the advice on how best to use your IT to support your business has stopped
• Or you need a higher level of support

… it’s in your best interest to find a brand-new IT support partner.

If you’ve spotted that you need more support, your IT support partner has almost certainly noticed too. In fact, if they’re a proactive partner, they may even raise this with you first. If you’ve ever felt any of these pain points, maybe now is the right time for you to make the switch too?

When you place your technology at the centre of your business growth strategy, you see why it’s important to have a partner you can trust. We are not claiming to be perfect. Inevitably we occasionally get some things wrong for our customers some of the time because we’re human too. But as we have great partnerships with our customers, we’re able to have a grown-up conversations and change course speedily.

9. They are always pushing new hardware

Many of our clients mention that their previous IT support provider spent a lot of time pushing new equipment rather than educating on the fundamentals.

It’s lovely to have the very latest technology in your business, but it’s certainly not essential. There are other things to take into consideration before upgrading devices and equipment. Even more so today when value for money and return on investment are imperative.

For sure, your company will need a certain level of equipment for you to work the way you need to, but you probably already have some of the things you require. I find that for most businesses, it’s far more important to get the infrastructure right before we even consider your hardware. Additional devices, for example, are sometimes nice to have rather than crucial.

A good IT support partner will help you to create a technology roadmap, which should give you an understanding at which points in the coming years you will need to budget for upgrades or additional devices.

10. They never seem to accept responsibility

When you work with an IT support partner, it’s crucial that both businesses take accountability for their side of the agreement. Failing to do so causes a lack of trust. And that inevitably means that the relationship is not successful.

I’ve heard from businesses who have reported an issue to their IT support provider, only to be told that it’s their fault that the issue arose in the first place. 

The idea of an IT support partner is that you trust them to deal with their area of expertise, whilst you get on with running your business. If they’re passing the buck when you have an issue, you’re not reaping the reward of a support partner at all.

Corbel are an IT Support Partner for businesses in Ipswich and the surrounding Suffolk area specialising in Cyber Security, IT Consulting Services and Business continuity.