How much of a pain was your last tech problem? When your network went down, how long did it take for internal IT staff to bring it back up? How much work time did you lose? Think of how much time, money, and stress you could have saved yourself if you had been more prepared. Those savings are the goal of proactive IT support.
Traditional forms of IT support will provide reactive support, which only enters the picture when problems are present and actively occurring. However, proactive managed IT service teams will provide round-the-clock monitoring, maintenance, and coverage of your IT systems. Read on to better understand the benefits of this paradigm, and call today if no-stress IT support is what you need!
What Does Proactive IT Support Look Like?
Proactive support is provided in continuous monitoring, maintenance, and education. Most proactive offerings will fall under these three umbrellas. Here are a few examples of what typical proactive IT support looks like:
Regular Maintenance
Periodic software updates, hardware upgrades, backups, and security scans. These all come together and form the source of proactive IT support's strength.
Ongoing Training
Consistently training employees on cyber security, threats, and IT issues that may arise will turn every member of your team into an IT expert.
Network Analyses
Proactive IT support often starts with a complete assessment of your network systems and workflows to identify problem areas and weak points in your network.
Improve Your Systems
Having a high-level view of your IT environment will provide you with more opportunities to improve upon existing systems and increase productivity.
These are the major forms of proactive IT support you can expect to receive if you work with a knowledgeable IT team. There are many more options, and no two IT teams will provide the same support, so call your local experts for more information and guidance.
Benefits of Proactive Managed IT Services
These proactive managed IT services benefit productivity, employee satisfaction, cost savings, and improvements to your systems. Because the proactive model is consistent and focused on development rather than simple fixes, it has long-term benefits, even if there are short-term concerns.
Proactive IT support benefits include:
- Improved systems thanks to consistent maintenance
- Less spending on extensive fixes
- Less downtime and productivity loss
- Happier employees
- More training and cross-team visibility
However, it's fair to examine some of the drawbacks of proactive IT support as well:
- Growing pains as you learn the model
- Upfront costs in new systems and tools
But many of these drawbacks and concerns can be avoided by working alongside a knowledgeable IT company. A team of experts can mitigate many of these issues by working with less, integrating processes more smoothly, and helping develop or augment your team with proactive managed services.
How to Develop a Proactive IT Support Strategy
Strategizing more proactively can be difficult. Proactive support takes knowledge and insights you might be too close to notice. However, some strategies and tactics can help you think more proactively and view your business from a new perspective.
Analyze Team Performance
Analyzing your team's key productivity indicators can show where they fall short. However, analyzing their performance and working with managers can also help show the shortcomings of your network and technology infrastructure.
Identify Problem Areas
Reviewing past tickets can take time away from current issues. However, noting trends or themes throughout past IT support needs can help you look forward to future problems and mitigate those issues before they happen again.
Strategizing is half of the battle regarding network security operations and IT development. However, thinking critically about your business this way can be difficult if you don't know what tools and technology are available. IT support service companies make this kind of analysis their business and can provide the first steps towards efficiency.
Proactive IT Support vs. Reactive Support
You might recognize reactive support as the traditional and standard IT support model. This break/fix model reacts to issues as they arise. There are benefits to this, just as there are drawbacks.
Break/Fix Model
- Cost-effective per-incident
- Flexible as-needed
- No long-term commitment
Proactive Model
- Improves your systems and educates your team
- Fewer incidents overall
- Lower impact per-incident
The reactive model of IT support exists for a reason, but remaining committed to it can result in stagnation and falling behind other companies. No business can stay the same long without losing a competitive edge over other companies and cybercriminals.
Call Now and Enjoy the Benefits of a Proactive IT Support Team!
If you're tired of losing productive work time waiting for a support team to fix your network, then the proactive approach is for you! Managed proactive IT services can help you improve data security, stabilize your digital environment, increase efficiency, and improve your technology infrastructure.
Don't wait until the next network outage; call a service provider who can help you implement proactive IT support across your company. Discover how we can help you meet business goals as we have done with so many others. See what you can do with the right tools and expertise behind you and your team - call today!
Articled reviewed and endorsed by Branson Buchanan.
