It’s natural to want to save money wherever possible — and what smart businesses don’t do this? Relatively small businesses whose owners happen to be tech-savvy can get away with managing their own computers and equipment. However, for larger types of businesses with several computers, it’s not practical to manage their own IT even if the owners are tech-savvy. This is due to the fact that large businesses consume too much time via administration or other ways to be able to effectively manage their own IT infrastructure — and this isn’t even factoring in stress. To run a large business and attempt to manage the computer infrastructure on top of that would make life pretty dull — and exhausting. What satisfaction comes from a large business when it’s owner attempts to run the whole show themselves? There really isn’t any.

This is why using managed service providers is a novel idea. Instead of the owner, manager, or employees attempting to manage the computer infrastructure, they can focus on business productivity and leave the tech stuff to professionals. Outsourcing routine management of computer systems to service providers not only helps save time, but it saves potential disaster. Many successful businesses have suffered great losses due to their computer systems not being properly managed — when devices stop working, repairs are often attempted by those who are not familiar enough with the systems being repaired, and in some cases cause more damage than the original problem being fixed. For small computer systems or networks where productivity disruption is not a big issue, self attempts at repair are generally more acceptable — but not with relatively large businesses. Data preservation and restoration in the event of disasters or breakdowns in and of themselves can be sophisticated without even getting into device repair or maintenance. Let’s expand a little bit on some points above.

Stress

So your business just received its first major payoff. All the planning, hard work, sweat, and tears are paying off and the prospect is looking bright. The bucks keep rolling in but there never seems to be time to enjoy the fruits of the labor due to the desire to save as much money as possible — by attempting to self-manage the computer infrastructure. It’s great that the talent to achieve such a task can be retained, but let’s not forget why we start businesses in the first place — it’s aspiration toward freedom from the general boundaries of an average employment. By attempting to manage every aspect of the business, the joy of starting the business in the first place can be easily negated.

Time

This point sort of goes back to what was discussed about stress. However, although more time spent toward managing a business can increase stress, managing computers steals time away from the productivity side of the business. Take the following as an example: An important business associate is on phone and content of certain E-mails are being discussed — then, suddenly, access to E-mail goes down postponing the productivity of the phone call. Whether the E-mail connectivity went down due to postponed maintenance or something breaking down, the business is on the hook to take care of the broken E-mail in addition to — hopefully — resuming the productivity of the lost phone conversation.

Risk

Self-management of computer infrastructures carries risk through various means. Some of those are loss of productivity, lost time, and lost money — all due to inefficient attempts at repair, maintenance, backup and restore, and perhaps physical illness due to being overstressed. Imagine performing a routine backup of customer data and when the time of year comes around to reach out to customers via E-mail marketing, it’s discovered that the entire customer-information database has been wiped out and unrecoverable due to an overlooked detail in the backup system.

Examples of risks are numerous and can generally be avoided by outsourcing to managed service providers. SystemsNet has sufficient experience and manpower to deal with the needs of large businesses. Please contact us to discuss how we can help your business.

IT help desks can be incredibly useful inside your business infrastructure. They help employees solve problems, make better use of their technology, and face down cybersecurity threats with confidence. However, many IT help desks are sorely underutilized as employees are hesitant to make the call when they experience trouble.

Most modern professionals are independent-minded. They enjoy solving their own problems and, if the IT desk is new, they are used to handling technical hiccups on their own. Even if your IT team could streamline and improve their own troubleshooting, staff may not realize just how much they’re missing out by not calling the help desk at the right times. They wind up losing hours each year to attempting to fix or –worse– attempting to work on half-broken workstations.

So today, we’re here to highlight a few useful ways to encourage your staff to call the help desk when they need it.

Add IT to Your VoIP Quick Contacts

The first and easiest way to encourage your staff to call IT is to make it easy to call IT. Your VoIP phone system can feature a list of quick contacts that every staff member has access to. This may include the front desk, mail room, HR, and of course their own supervisor and team members. Make sure that this quick-contacts list also includes a prominent link to the IT help desk phone number.

If your team uses handsets, ensure that one programmable speed-dial button is set to take them straight to IT. This way, talking to IT is a single click or button press away. No need to look up the number which acts as a procrastination barrier to calling for IT when it is needed.

Provide Live Chat Connection to the IT Help Desk

For many modern professionals in their 20s and 30s, live chat is a far more comfortable form of communication than talking on the phone. Chatting doesn’t require ‘small talk’ or laughing at each other’s jokes. There’s also no worry about sounding awkward or stilted when talking about tech stuff that employees may not understand.

By providing an easily found live-chat link to the IT help desk, you may find that many more staff members are comfortable reaching out and asking for help when they need it.

Offer Rewards for Reported Phishing and Malware Attacks

Employees often don’t know what to do when they receive a phishing email or think they have just witnessed signs of a malware attack. What you want them to do is report it to IT so that the problem can be hunted down, defended against, and stopped in the future. The best way to do this is to offer some kind of reward or bounty for every phishing email or malware attack spotted by an employee.

They are sure to call IT with each false or suspicious email with a reward on the line, something that is great for morale and great for your business cybersecurity.

Encourage Staff Directly in Meetings and Memos

Always combine the direct method with opportunities. IT may be on live chat and speed dial, but your team needs to know that you really want them to call the IT help desk when something comes up. So encourage them. Encourage them in group meetings, and offer reminders through emails and mentions at company parties.

The more often you mention that calling IT is a desired company policy, the more staff members will pick it up to be good employees.

Audit Currently Half-Broken Workstations

For stodgy old professionals who just don’t call IT no matter what, one of the best solutions is simply to audit workstations. Have IT come through and assess whether each personal workstation is in ship-shape or has been limping along with unsolved software errors, up-updated programs, or undetected malware.

Anyone with a half-broken workspace should then receive a pointed speech about how not calling IT puts the company at risk while their workstation is either replaced or repaired before they can return to work. This will drive the point home for heel-draggers.

Praise Employees for Taking Care of IT-Assisted Repairs

Finally, remember to offer praise as well. It is an employee’s duty to keep their workstation in good working order and to call IT if anything problematic or suspicious arises. Each time someone takes care of their own IT scutwork without having to be told, offer a small word of praise or reward. The simple reinforcement will build morale and show that IT responsibility is worth respect in your company.

Those who are IT-vigilant will feel that respect and others who want praise will follow their example.

Making use of your IT help desk is about more than just technology. You need your entire team onboard to the idea of calling IT when something goes wrong and following their directions to fix the problem efficiently. These methods can healthily promote the use of your IT help desk by offering opportunity, encouragement, and minor consequences for neglect. For more IT help desk tips or services, contact us today!