Well, which is it? Half Board or All Inclusive?

Sorry, no, I’m not talking about holidays…rather an analogy of how I view the current standard of IT service offerings versus the offerings from IT Assist. With most, you get a simple choice, half board or all inclusive.

You see I’ve worked extremely hard to put IT Assist in a position where our service offering is in an entirely different league to our competitors.

All of our customers benefit from an all inclusive service. Which in the long term provides a more stable IT infrastructure, reduced and predictable IT costs, better security and much more.

Below I’ll touch on a few key differences, these include (but aren’t limited to):

Proactive Monitoring

If you currently have an IT provider, I’m sure they’ve made you aware that they proactively monitor your devices around the clock. This allows them to find faults before they happen. The scary truth about this is that some providers are not doing this at all. And the ones that do, generally use monitoring systems that require parameters/thresholds to be manually configured. Only if the computer falls outside of these parameters are alerts generated.

Running a system of mixed computer types and specifications, running different software with different user habits can make this almost impossible to proactively monitor with any real accuracy.

This is where we differ. We utilise state of the art, AI (artificial intelligence) technology with our monitoring software. Meaning it learns the thresholds of each computer automatically and becomes increasingly accurate as time goes on.

Proper Documentation

I challenge you to ask your current IT service provider for a copy of your site/network information and administrator passwords. I have seen, more often than not, very very poor and outdated documentation from our competitors. What happens if that IT company closes its doors? Who knows about your current IT configuration?

As a business owner myself, this is something I consider to be extremely important. We keep organised, structured and current documentation on all of our clients IT infrastructures. And we use a secure password management system, where the data is stored on an encrypted drive. We typically send a copy of this out early in the agreement. That way the customer has a copy. But customers can request an up to date copy of this at any point during their agreement.

Unlimited Support

Some of our competitors are offering “unlimited support” too. But typically this is limited to remote support. Meaning that in the instance you need a site visit, they will invoice you for the call out. Not without its limits then, is it?

Personally, when I’m paying for a service agreement, I want to know that I am covered without the worry of additional charges. I took this stance with our unlimited support. We are truly unlimited, be that remotely or onsite.

Response Times

Let’s face it. When you need support you generally need it immediately and don’t want to have to wait for a callback in an hour or two.

I can’t speak for our competitors first hand. But many of our customers have told us how impressively fast we are by comparison. Generally speaking, we fix issues in 30 minutes or less.

Security Software

Unless your computer is entirely isolated from the internet and shared data, security software is an essential part of computing. If you have a computer, you need anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-phishing, anti-spyware and so on. This is often an additional expense to your IT support costs. And one that is often overlooked.

Costs of security software vary, but I think an average cost of £5 per pc, per month, is a typical and fair cost for security software. Assuming you have 10 computers, that’s an IT expense of around £600 per year. It’s additional to your support costs.

How would you feel if I told you that we can save you that cost? We believe that security software is essential for all IT systems. So, we provide leading Endpoint Protection for all your systems as standard at no extra cost.

My Personal Availability

Are you able to easily speak with a senior authority or director at your current IT service provider?

I personally, am extremely customer service focused. And this is very much the lifeblood of IT Assist. My vision is for IT Assist to be the best IT service provider. Period. This is why we offer more and work harder than our competitors.

With that in mind, I ensure all of our customers have my direct mobile telephone number and email address.

Final Thoughts

With those key points in mind, let me ask you… When it comes to your business, would you rather be half board or all inclusive?

If you want to find out more or even just need a second opinion on anything IT related, please feel free to drop me a message or email me directly: danny@it-assist.co.uk