Greg Watson
Having a sufficient IT support and monitoring solution in effect is now essential whatever your business, and for many SMEs in particular, remote support provides practical cover for a range of systems issues. However, for those without an in-house team or anyone experienced to deal with problems less easily solved remotely, dedicated onsite support offers a flexible and cost-effective solution, which can help your business get higher level technical support and expert advice when you need it:
Hiring in-house IT staff can be costly and may not be necessary if you run smaller operations with systems needing less maintenance. However routine onsite maintenance will help your systems run longer and save you money replacing and repairing infrastructure in the long term. Onsite support plans are also flexible, as third-line services can be acquired on a pay-as-you-go, prepaid hours or fixed term basis. This means that you’ll be better able to budget and plan for ongoing support costs.
An onsite engineer can often drop by with little notice if there is an urgent situation needing addressing, as opposed to having to wait for a remote technician to call you back. Emergency visits can reduce downtime if something goes wrong, which is critical to business efficiency and productivity.
There may be problems with your hardware physically which cannot be fixed remotely, or issues which may not be visible to the remote worker. An onsite engineer may be able to better assess problems if they can physically see and check your infrastructure. Having an onsite engineer on hand at specific times, will also enable you to plan work more effectively around maintenance works and schedule updates or projects to improve your IT, again leading to more efficient operations.
It is often easier to understand issues and communicate them in person instead of over the telephone. Although remote support is cost effective, both your staff and the technician dealing with your IT may be better able to identify problems and the proposed solutions face to face, without interruption from bad connectivity or the remote workers’ other demands. If you have multiple office locations and cannot cover onsite IT support from your main support base, a personable engineer will be able to get acquainted with satellite staff and help to improve communications between the different teams.
If staff are not trained to deal with computer software or hardware, an onsite technician can offer training or advice to help with basic problems and improve IT knowledge. Staff will feel more confident should small issues occur and they’ll be able to work more efficiently on a day to day basis.
