Companies don’t always grow in straight lines.

When most people mention this fact, they’re addressing the unfortunate reality that companies sometimes face revenue shortfalls.  However, new clients don’t always come at a steady pace, either.  Whether due to luck or poor planning, sometimes, everything goes right at the same time in the sales department.  This leads to the “good problem to have” – where a company is struggling to keep up with the work in front of them.  While it might be a good problem for the company, it’s rarely a good problem for their customers to face.

Companies that face both of these situations – vacillating between too much work and too little – are often better at sales than service.  In these cases, most of the customers that do make their way into the door will eventually find their way out.  This leads to a feast-or-famine situation, and executives are reluctant to expand their teams to cover an increased workload until they’re confident it’s going remain at the new level for months or years.

In the world of managed IT services and support, this leads to companies hiring “contractors” – temporary independent workers, often outside of the state (or nation), to work their tickets.  This is almost never good for their customers, who paid to have a local company serve their needs.  Consider the following facts.

IT contractors don’t know your network.  They’re going to take longer to solve the problems they encounter because they aren’t familiar with your company or your network.  They aren’t likely to try and learn about it, because they’re temporary employees.  And if they do bother to learn your network, they’ll be gone soon, and someone else will have to learn it anew.

IT contractors don’t wear your provider’s shirt.  They may or may not have the same level of attention to security and respect for data confidentiality that you’d expect from an employee who is representing your IT provider day in and day out.  In fact, they may have never met the CEO of the IT Company for whom they provide services.

IT contractors aren’t what you paid for.  If you signed a managed IT services contract, the odds are high you were led to believe you’d be receiving local service from someone who was committed to your business.  Ask yourself – if you thought you were getting assistance from temporary employees, would you have paid the price you committed to pay on contract signing day?

That’s why we recommend making sure that your IT provider doesn’t use contractors and hasn’t done so recently.  A friendly, local, trustworthy technician at a low-turnover company will ensure that you can gain increasing benefits from the relationship with your managed service provider.  That’s exactly what you should expect from any provider of managed IT services – more efficient business operations due to better utilization of technology.

To learn how WingSwept can help your business get better results from technology, contact us at 919.779.0954 or email us at Team_WingSwept@WingSwept.com.