Having an IT Support contract in place is one of the best ways to manage you IT Systems. However some SME's prefer a "Pay As You Go" or Hybrid Support arrangement.

It is common that the majority of SME's don’t have their own IT department or have the budget for an IT engineer job role within their business. This normally means that their IT Systems are not being maintained as well as they should be or in some cases never being maintained at all. This presents many potential issues, although there might not be any obvious issues from the start, there are many different types of issues that can arise from the systems not being maintained. Managing windows updates, virus definition updates, virus / malware scans and making sure the correct backup solution is in place with the ability to check that these backups have completed successfully on a daily basis are all part of maintaining the IT infrastructure.

Having an IT support contract in place takes the stress off you and your employees when any IT issue arises. Knowing that you have someone to go to when they have any IT related issue makes the work environment a much more productive place. Your employees don’t have to sit in the dark trying to work around the problems for themselves, they can contact STARTEK for assistance. We normally find when meeting new customers that their users have been less productive as they have had issues with office applications or lack of training for some time that just required a simple fix or 10 minutes express training.

STARTEK thrive on resolving IT related issues and we are able to do this by remote control or on site. Remote support lets our engineers take control of the computer or server that has the issue straight away. No time is wasted booking an engineer to come out on site, cutting down on waiting time for the customer when waiting for an engineer to travel long distances, battling through heavy traffic to attend site. All these factors save your business time which can be crucial as we know time is money. There will be times when an engineer is required to come out on site, an example would be if we were not able to connect to the computer or server or in the event of a hardware issue incident.

How effective is remote support?

98% of our support incidents are resolved remotely which speaks for itself. We have total control of the server or computer when initiating a remote support session. This enables us to carry out pretty much every technical task possible to rectify IT issues other than an operating system re-install, which would be an onsite visit. If the support incident is within business hours and a computer became un responsive we would ask the user to reboot the computer for us, so we can re-connect to the computer once rebooted.

All on site visits are chargeable at the hourly rate, the first hour is always chargeable for every callout and every hour on site is charged in 30 minute blocks thereafter.

Monthly or “Pay As You Go Support” Contracts

A monthly contract has a set number of hours over a set number of computers, servers and network devices such as NAS appliances, Routers, Managed Switches and Network Printers / MFC's (Multifunctional Devices). We then calculate a set number of hours; the monthly support contract will have an SLA so that you know for peace of mind there is a time window in which STARTEK will act on support request depending on their severity and level.

"Pay As You Go" does not carry this level of SLA, "Pay As You Go" customers can request support and we will be able to provide support at an agreed time slot if we are dealing with a high level of monthly support incidents.

The cost of a monthly support contract is much more cost effective compared to if you had to pay for the support on a "Pay As You Go" perspective for the hours used that month. But "Pay As You Go" may or may not be more suitable for you and your business.

STARTEK thrive on fixing customers IT issues and making sure the engine room of your business, the IT systems, are finely tuned. If you would like to discuss STARTEK providing your business with IT Support, an IT Support contract or a "Pay As You Go" support agreement, then please contact us on via the contact us form or click the email link below.