Does your IT Support Provider Tie You in for a Year or More?

IT support contracts have existed for as long as IT systems and are universally understood by businesses.

For a fixed monthly fee, your Managed Service Provider (MSP) will deliver an agreed level of support. Sometimes with replacement hardware and often with daily management and maintenance tasks taken care of remotely.

Most business IT support providers will sign you up for a year, some for 2 (but once we came across a 4-year contract!)

In such a competitive industry, why aren’t more companies following Systemagic’s lead and doing away with lengthy contracts altogether?

A Little Bit of History

Systemagic started in 1998 when it set out to provide PAYG IT support to small and medium-sized businesses.

In 2004, with the introduction of constant internet connectivity for most businesses, we redeveloped our service and started offering Managed Service Contracts.

These were fixed monthly fee arrangements, which included:

• Daily remote maintenance of systems
• Round-the-clock monitoring and alerting
• Helpdesk support and assistance
• Regular onsite visits (where necessary)

The difference is that all of our contracts are based on rolling 30-day notice periods.

Our ethos is that if the service delivery and customer service are of a high enough standard, then we have no need to tie our customers into lengthy contracts.

We’re so confident in our service that this ethos extends to all our added services – business broadband, email and cloud services, and online backup.

Over the years, we have earnt many awards and accreditations for our commitment to service standards. This includes Microsoft Gold Partner status, ESET Gold Partner status and customer service awards.

Salesy bit over. Back to my point…

I met an IT Provider at a networking event recently, and we got talking about our shared experiences and challenges in the very saturated IT Support market.

I was genuinely disgusted when he said to me:

“Of course, we’re all in the same boat. We know we’re only likely to have a customer for a year before they shop around. So we have to cram in a server and installation, plenty of hardware and a fair amount of onsite time so we make our money’s worth in the year”.

That couldn’t be further away from my mindset of working hard at building a relationship, never overselling and working with the customer to establish their requirements rather than dictating based on our own greed.

So, is your IT Support provider still locking you into a long contract?

When was the last time they genuinely worked hard at maintaining your relationship rather than simply delivering what is written down in a contract?

There are some really great IT support providers out there who are working hard to build and maintain trust, honesty and integrity.

Don’t find yourself stuck with one of the others.

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