Remote IT Support for Small Businesses
Remote IT support can be particularly beneficial for small businesses as it keeps costs down, saves time and provides peace of mind by ensuring a company can operate effectively. If you lack the necessary expertise, experience or time to manage your IT in house, then outsourcing this to an IT company, will provide a number of benefits.
What is remote IT support?
Remote IT support is technical assistance provided either over the internet or the telephone. It’s usually a combination of the two! To put it simply, your IT hardware is managed remotely by your IT support company via the internet, whilst any issues are fixed at distance too. The software used to provide this remote service is called Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software and enables your IT company to access all they need from their computers in their offices. This provides two core services.
Firstly, it enables your IT company to keep check of your IT network, to ensure it’s working as it should and everything is kept up to date. You may successfully run a business, but by no means does that make you an expert in technology. If you lack the necessary expertise and experience, then keeping track of your digital infrastructure can be a chore. Even if you have the experience, you may not have the time nor the patience to invest in keeping your systems up to date. Remote IT support is therefore crucial in filling this gap.
Secondly, when you or your users experience a problem, it enables your support company to access your hardware to have a look at what’s going on. They can take control of the system or an individual laptop or computer from afar, and fix the issue. The primary benefit of this is the time saved. By providing a remote IT support service, IT companies don’t need to visit all of their customers every time they need to help someone. It’s also how they can keep costs down. More on that later!
What are the benefits of remote IT support to my small business?
The three major benefits of remote IT support for a small business is time, cost and peace of mind.
As alluded to above, by having someone look after your IT remotely, you don’t need to spend time doing so. What’s more though, you don’t lose time when something goes wrong, or when an employee is struggling with a problem. We’ve discussed the impact a slow response time can have on a business before. By not fixing an IT issue, or being slow to do so, your staff might not be able to work. This means you’re paying their salary to do very little. They’re also not generating revenue and will probably be getting grumpy in the process.
This is particularly pertinent for small businesses. If you employ ten people, losing one of them to IT issues is 10% of your workforce. If you don’t have remote IT support to help your small business, this could require the help of another colleague. At this point, you’ve lost 20% of your staff to the issue. Conversely, an IT support company that provides remote IT support is likely able to get things moving quicker, without the need to disturb other employees. All in all, this saves you time.
In a similar manner, the cost savings involved with employing remote IT support can be a real benefit for small businesses. Enlisting the services of an external supplier may seem costly, but using the services of an IT support service is much cheaper than paying the salary of an internal technician. This is before considering additional costs such as training . What’s more, you benefit from the assistance of multiple IT engineers, all of which will have different areas of expertise and experience. This means you get far more technical knowledge, advice and assistance for your money.
As with the time savings too, remote IT support really benefits your bottom line when something goes wrong. Being able to get back on your feet quickly means you don’t miss out on sales.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the addition of remote IT support should provide you with peace of mind as a small business owner. When running a small business, you’re busy thinking about 101 things, some of which you may not know a whole lot about! We know the stress and confusion this can cause. By outsourcing your IT management though, you can bring in expert help, to ensure your technology is working to the benefit of your business.
A good IT company should also work proactively to ensure your digital infrastructure and assets are kept up to speed and running smoothly. They should be helping to mitigate potential issues before they can cause you problems. This can in turn increase productivity and ease tension in your team.
Keeping costs down with a remote IT support service.
For a small business, keeping a track of outgoing costs and making sure the books are balanced is of the utmost importance and we’re wary that when someone mentions lower costs as a benefit, warning bells can sometimes go off! However, by employing the assistance of an IT support service you and your team get the security of consistent and practical digital solutions for a fixed monthly rate. Depending on the company you employ, you’ll be able to factor your IT service into your budget without having to worry about surprise fees.
To keep your IT costs low, it is vital to employ a service that offers proactive solutions. There’s nothing worse than paying a fixed monthly rate for an IT service that doesn’t employ preventative measures. A proactive IT management service will offer solutions that nip issues in the bud before they escalate and this proactive approach will save you time and money in the long term.
What happens if my IT issue cannot be fixed remotely?
Inevitably not all IT issues can be fixed remotely. You might require the assistance of onsite IT support from time to time. However, the frequency of this requirement is probably less than you might imagine! In this day and age, the bulk of IT issues can be fixed swiftly by a remote technician. With that being said, when considering an IT support service, you always want to ask this question. It’s all well and good getting remote IT support from the other end of the country, but what happens to your small business that one time you need someone at your office? Mixing remote and onsite IT support is important to balance, but remember most issues can be fixed away from your place of work. That’s what the RMM software is for!
IT Management with Acronyms IT Support
You don’t want to go wrong with your managed IT support service. Outsourcing the management of your digital assets and infrastructure to a remote IT support service provides a number of benefits to small businesses as has been discussed throughout this post.
Specialising in hassle-free, cost-effective digital solutions, the team at Acronyms IT Support offer a range of different services for businesses of all sizes. Delivering some of the very best IT support in the Southwest, our dedicated and professional specialists offer friendly service without the complicated language and unnecessary costs that have plagued the IT industry in the past.
If you have any questions about the services and solutions we offer or are ready to book a consultation, please feel free to contact us today.
