How Long Should It Take for Your IT Service Provider to Respond?

Technology is growing faster than ever and will continue to do so, however, regardless of how fast things are changing, the data provided by surveys have stayed pretty much consistent. The data tells us that one of the biggest or, most important features of an IT support team is how quickly they respond, or, don’t. Here’s a bit of detail behind the matter and perhaps a little nudge in the right direction of improving your own business operations;

IT Service Provider

Straight from the horse’s mouth

There are numerous blogs and other informative websites that provide statistics by way of data collection from various companies all relating to IT support providers. Some of them have been collecting data for decades, regardless, they all say the same thing. The biggest complaint that they hear about is about the time it takes for their IT service provider to get back to them.

Many a customer can be heard, or seen saying something along the lines of, ‘we can never get hold of our IT team, the phone diverts to voicemail, more often than not and, when they do finally get hold of the support team, they don’t receive the same level of service that they once did.

Time to start shopping around?

The change in how they are dealt with, probably isn’t a deliberate avoidance tactic, more a case of the company, perhaps taking on more than they can cope with whilst still being able to provide the same level of service. One of the very reasons that customers employ an IT service provider is so that they don’t have to worry about things getting done and so that they can grow their business more efficiently.

That is not to say that all IT service providers have taken on more than they can chew, there are some very competent service providers and a lot of competition so, it should really be the customer’s choice as to whether they accept the level of service that they receive, or not. The customer should also be able to decide what goes into their service level agreement or SLA.

Generally speaking, it is reasonable to allow 24 hours for an email reply before thinking that you are being ignored, although some companies will commit to a faster response time. If the matter is urgent then calling to speak with somebody is normally the best option to get an emergency call out arranged however if you can’t get hold of anybody on a regular basis, then your alarm bells should start ringing and, perhaps it’s time to start shopping around.

Remain inquisitive

As and when it is time to start shopping around, you should always ask questions, the more questions you ask, the better idea you will have as to whether the provider you are speaking with can cope with your needs. If you incorporate a few of the following topics into your enquiries then you’ll be much wiser when it comes to actually making a decision, try asking about;

Response times fix times, communication methods, the technicians’ abilities, ease of altering or changing service plans, quality of products, parts availability and, price overvalue. Nearly all IT service providers should have data that backs up their answers.

 

Recommended For You

About the Author: Alex

Alex Jones is a writer and blogger who expresses ideas and thoughts through writings. He loves to get engaged with the readers who are seeking for informative content on various niches over the internet. He is a featured blogger at various high authority blogs and magazines in which He is sharing research-based content with the vast online community.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *