Most IT support happens remotely, and that's a good thing. When Outlook won't open or a shared folder vanishes, the fastest fix is someone connecting to your computer a few minutes later, not someone getting in a truck.
So it's fair to ask why it matters where your IT company is. If they can fix things over the internet, they could be anywhere.
They could. On a normal Tuesday you might not notice the difference. It shows up on the days that aren't normal.
Some problems need hands
Remote tools work great until the broken thing is the connection. A dead firewall, a switch that got cooked in a lightning storm, a server that won't boot, a new office that needs network cabling. You can't fix those over the internet, because the internet is the part that isn't working.
That's when you want your IT company a short drive away, not a plane ticket away. We're in Lacombe, and most of the area we cover (the Northshore, Baton Rouge, the New Orleans area, the Mississippi Gulf Coast and southern Alabama) is a short drive when someone needs to be on-site.
Hurricane season is a local problem
A help desk three time zones away doesn't know what the cone looked like this morning. Someone who lives here does, because they're watching it too.
Storm prep for an office isn't complicated, but it has to happen before the storm:
- Confirm the backups are current and stored somewhere other than your building.
- Know which equipment gets shut down, unplugged or lifted off the floor.
- Make sure people can work from home if the office is dark for a week.
- Decide who checks on what once it's safe to go back in.
Afterward, a local IT company is dealing with the same closed roads and power outages you are. That sounds like a drawback, but it means none of it catches them by surprise. They plan for it at work because they have to plan for it at home.
Being understood the first time
A lot of what makes support good or bad has nothing to do with technical skill. It's whether the person on the other end understands your problem the first time you explain it.
All of WITTCO's support is handled in the U.S. We don't use an offshore help desk. When you call, you get someone who keeps the same hours you do, knows where Ponchatoula is and doesn't need you to spell Tchefuncte.
It also tends to mean the same few people work on your account year after year, so you're not explaining your setup from scratch every time you call.
Local shouldn't mean second-rate
The fair worry about a smaller local provider is whether they have the same tools as the big national outfits. They should. The security, backup and monitoring tools we use, like SentinelOne and Datto, are the same kinds of tools large companies rely on. Being local changes who picks up and how fast someone can get to you. It shouldn't change the toolkit.
Speed counts on the remote side too. Most of our support requests are picked up in under 15 minutes.
Questions to ask any IT company
- Where is your help desk, physically?
- If our internet goes down, how soon can someone be here?
- What do you do for clients before and after a hurricane?
- Will we usually talk to the same people?
- Are we locked into a contract?
Good answers matter more than an address, but it's hard to give a good answer to the second and third questions from three states away. For the record, we don't do long-term contracts. If we're not earning your business every month, you should be free to leave.
If you'd like to meet the people who would actually be answering your calls, a free assessment is a good place to start.
