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Are you beginning to feel like your IT provider has been taking you for a ride? Excessive bills, exclusions, and not much evidence of any work getting done in the background?
This blog will outline the five most telling signs that your IT provider is either incompetent, taking advantage of you, or both.
Fixed fee contracts have diminishing customer value over their term. Typically on a fixed fee contract, providers deliver less and less support and maintenance over the term, thereby increasing their profits while diminishing the value of your investment over the term of the agreement.
Ask yourself, “Why would my provider be keeping me locked into a long-term contract unless they were scared I was going to realise that their ongoing service delivery is declining over the course of my agreement?”
Virtual CIO Services occurs when your provider comes in and runs through strategy with you. Did your provider do this? Or, better question, did the strategy you discussed actually get delivered? Oftentimes, CIO Services is just a line item on your contract that doesn’t get followed through. Alternatively, when it does get done, it is often completed using a service that was in their best interest to deliver (possibly a partner offering kickbacks?). You need to consider was this strategy in your best interest, or theirs.
Non-itemised, or non-descriptive billing is when your provider fails to provide monthly invoices that clearly describe the work completed within the month. Perhaps your provider is trying to keep you in the dark by listing either non-itemised or incredibly vague descriptions of services e.g. ‘Monthly Maintenance’ – what does that even mean?! You should be receiving invoices that clearly outline services delivered, so you have physical evidence of the work that has been done. This should be in plain English – so that non-technical people (most of us!) can easily understand. If they aren’t doing this, or are overcomplicating these services, is it because there is something they don’t want you to know? Itemised billing should be as clear as this:
Windows Updates
Security Checks
Backup Monitoring
Does your provider like to dictate what you can and cannot do with your systems? For example, do they allow you access to your software vendors when you need support? When you’d like to explore new, or perhaps industry-specific software, do they try and convince you otherwise because “it’s not in your best interest,” or is it simply not in theirs?
Oftentimes IT providers will tell their customers that their technical environment is far too complex for anyone else to manage. However, it’s important to understand that most technical environments are reasonably standard. Take going to the mechanics for example, it would be rare for a mechanic to claim to be unable to work on a specific car model. And when you switch to a mechanic who’s never worked on your car before, they still understand how to fix it.
If your provider is telling you it’s too complicated, what they likely mean is it’s too complicated for them.
At Myrtec, we pride ourselves on delivering customer-focused and transparent IT services. Get in contact with our team and stop settling for second-best.
IT’S TIME TO UPGRADE YOUR IT PROVIDER. WE WORK WITH BUSINESSES THAT ARE COMMITTED TO RISING TO THE NEXT LEVEL. IS THIS YOU?
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