5 Critical Factors Every Business Must Consider When Hiring an IT Server Management Company

Imagine yourself in the shoes of a business owner who have worked day in and day out for decades to get his or her business to where it is today. You are expanding operations in new markets, but your website is not capable of handling the extra load. This leads to slow website performance, errors and crashes, which negatively impacts the user experience of your business website and dents your brand image badly.

There could be dozens of reasons for this but one of the main reasons is that you have not chosen the right IT server management service provider to manage your website. If you are planning to outsource your IT server management so you can focus on core business functions, make sure you consider these five critical factors when you are hiring an IT server management company.

1. Relevant Experience

One of the first things you should look for when hiring an IT server management company is the relevant experience. Even if you must pay more for it, an IT server management company with relevant experience is much better than an inexperienced company. Do they have relevant experience? Do they have projects related to your industry? If the answer to both these questions is yes, you can look for other qualities but if the answer is no, you are better off looking elsewhere.

The advantage with an experienced IT server management company is that they are familiar with all common server issues and have experience of fixing these issues. Additionally, they are well versed in the art of handling different types of hosting servers and give you valuable customer insights that will help you in growing your business.

2. Certified Technicians

This brings us to our second point, qualification of technicians. Are the staff qualified enough to handle complex server management issues? Have they received the required training? Are they certified to manage servers? Look for a server management company that can handle customer queries efficiently without exchanging dozens of emails. Technicians should be smart enough to comprehend the issue and respond in a timely manner. Working with non-qualified, untrained technicians can result in slip-ups such as an increase in downtime that your business can not afford. That is why it is important to look for highly skilled, qualified and trained IT professionals to manage your web servers.

3. Cost

Set a budget for IT server management and access your needs before starting your hunt for your next IT server management company. Ask yourself how much you are willing to pay for server management? Depending on your answer, you can look for options that fall inside your budget.

Compare prices and offerings of different service providers and choose one that satisfies your business needs in the best possible way. Use the same techniques you use for scouting for the cheap dedicated server. Never skip on key features when choosing a package even if you must pay a little more for it. Ask for services that are included and excluded from the package and read the contract carefully to avoid getting ripped off.

4. Customer Support

Who would you contact when your website is down? Customer support of IT server management company, right. What if the customer support representative fails to resolve your issue? It will leave a bad taste in your mouth. Would you contact customer support again? Maybe but how many times. Would you recommend it to someone else? Obviously not. As a business, you don’t want your customers to negatively market your business. You can only do that by offering them great customer support.

The longer customer support takes to fix issues, the worst it is for your company. That is why the quality of customer support matters. Inquire about the operating hours and how they will handle issues that pop up during off hours of the night. Select an IT server management company that offers round the clock support for your business.

5. Backup and Disaster Recovery

Security has always been a pain in the neck for business owners. Hackers are always one step ahead, exploiting new vulnerabilities in most secured environments. This gives business owners some sleepless nights. You can minimize the risk of cyber security attacks by choosing a proficient server management company. Take some time out to understand the data and network operations of a server management company you are planning to hire.

Do they have a plan B ready when a disaster strike? Do they take regular backup of your data? How efficient is their disaster recovery mechanism? How quickly can they restore your website back to normal in case of an attack? Answering all these questions will give you a better idea about their disaster recovery capabilities, which will make it easier for you to decide whether to choose a server management company or not.

Which factors do you think is most important? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.