5 Questions to Ask Your Potential IT Services Provider

Compared to just a decade ago, the number of companies willing to outsource their IT operations has increased manifolds. Hiring an IT services provider to take care of your routine operations makes business management much easier.

However, outsourcing IT operations to a third party comes with a lot of risks. Your entire database and business operation are at stake, so you can’t afford to hire a provider that doesn’t deliver the right kind of services at the right time.

In order to filter service providers who falsely claim to be the best from the ones who actually do the job well, you must move beyond asking simple questions about who their team members are or how long they have been providing the services.

Instead, ask these questions to your potential IT services provider to find out whether they are the right fit for your business

1.) How will you ensure the security of my data?

I cannot emphasize this enough. Regardless of the type of services you decide to buy from the service providers, security should always be the number one priority. Sensitive information like client data, performance reports, business information, etc. are at an increased risk of malicious threats. It’s important to ensure that your prospective service provider has a strong grasp of data security.

Ask them what the best line of defense is according to them and how they have managed to implement reliable solutions for similar businesses in the past.

2.) What is and isn’t covered in your Service-Level Agreement (SLA)?

It can be very tempting to opt for a service provider that claims to support “everything.” Most companies often realize later that they can only raise a certain number of and certain kinds of tickets in a month.

The easiest way to avoid any mismatch in the expectations on both sides is to ask for a detailed Service-Level Agreement.

Ask your potential IT service provider to include clear information about the levels of support they will be providing, the guaranteed response time and whether you will be allocated a dedicated account manager for your business.

If they aren’t able to provide you a well-documented SLA, it indicates a lack of established protocols. In that case, consistency in service delivery isn’t very reliable so it’s wise to consider another service provider.

3.) How frequently do you perform maintenance for your infrastructure?

This question will serve two purposes for you. You will know whether their own infrastructure maintenance is a priority for them and how attentive they are about the maintenance schedule. This will give you a fair idea of how much they will care about the infrastructure maintenance for the services they provide to you. Secondly, infrastructure maintenance at the service provider’s end could mean there would be downtime for their operations. To ensure that your productivity isn’t affected by this, confirm with your service provider that you will be able to contact them even during their infrastructure maintenance.

Ask your service provider how often they conduct infrastructure maintenance and whether they will alert you about it in advance.

4.) Do you provide automated monitoring?

You cannot afford to not have an automated, round the clock monitoring for all your systems and processes. Your potential services provider must have an established 24x7 automated monitoring service. If they don’t, you can’t rely on them to spot the cause of failures at once.

So always ask your potential IT services provider what type of Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solution they use.

 You should know if their RMM system will always keep an eye on your system’s infrastructure and whether they will be able to eliminate potential issues before they become serious problems.

5.) Can you provide some references that work in the same industry as us?

After all the above considerations, if you feel a particular service provider will be a good fit for your business, you should still take one final step to reaffirm your choice with concrete evidence.

 Ask your potential provider if they have successfully worked with similar businesses in your industry and whether they can connect you with those references.

You should be looking at getting at least two other clients who would vouch for your potential provider’s services. Reach out to those references and ask them how the provider responded to the unexpected challenges their business had encountered. This will help you make a final call.

The Bottom Line

I understand that selecting the right IT services provider for your business isn’t as simple as running them through this list. However, these questions do make for a strong base for evaluating your options. A careful study of all the options in terms of the above parameters, combined with the compatibility analysis of your potential provider’s business values with your own, will certainly help you select the best IT services provider for your company.

What other questions do you think can help in making the right decision? Let me know in the comments below.