What sort of response time should you expect from an IT Support company?

Technical support companies can be a frustrating bunch to deal with and like many things in life, you can’t live with them and you cannot live without them.

They can be frustrating in the fact that although their help is essential, it usually takes forever for you to get it. IT Outsourcing companies like any outsourcing industry work to an SLA, and examining the SLA small print in your IT contract should be an essential check before you ever choose a company to sign up with.

The SLA (service level agreement) can range from 1-160 hours depending on what your problems are. Any company that is worth its salt should be able to offer you a 1 hour SLA for anything classes as business critical while standard jobs should take no longer than 4 hours to be responded to and auctioned.

It’s the standard SLA that causes so much gripe with so many people, particularly end users and office managers alike who are the ones that get it in the neck when things are not getting done. The problems is that so many IT companies out there do not have the resources to offer an SLA under 5 hours, and 5 hours is FAR too long to wait if you have an urgent job that need doing, in fact 5 hours eats into most of your working day.

So what can you do to improve this situation? Well the obvious answer it to find an IT Support company that has the facilities and resources to offer this sort of service. By this I don’t just mean an IT company that writes this on their website, I am talking about a company that can actually prove to you that they will deal with things within an SLA either by showing you proof in the form of stats or genuine referral’s.

SLA should always be documented and split up into certain categories. For example, anything business critical should always be responded to in 1 hour. This would usually need to be an onsite visit so think about the geographical location of the company that you choose to work with. Examples of 1 hour response time are no internet connectivity or a server failure.

The next step should be up to 4 hours for a standard response, but no more than this. Standard response queries include fixing any application issues such as problems with word; excel Sage etc. or any hardware problems such as a dead screen or a pc with a blue screen.
Longer SLA times such as 8 hours may include issues such as setting up user accounts or setting up a machine for a new user in advance. Then you have even longer SLA’s for on-going project work and consultation.

In my experience IT Support companies do try to fix most problems while you are on the phone, as this helps the remote IT engineers to keep their job lists down to a respectable size. However if they are too busy then your job will just get booked in and put into a que and this is when the length of the SLA becomes all the more important.

Advice. Get an SLA you are happy with set in stone and get it in legal writing. Choose an IT support company that has a reputation and proof of honouring their SLA response times. DON’T sign long term contracts.

Resouces. There are many IT compaines that can be found on Google, but take note of the ones in the natural listings. Use regional search terms like IT Support Liverpool or IT Support London to find companies that are local to your area.