Keeping a business running is not an easy job. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. It also takes an unending commitment to keeping every aspect of your company performing at peak efficiency at all times. This includes your IT system.
However, as we have all learned at one time or another (probably more than once), IT equipment is not indestructible. Your desktops, servers, firewalls, and switches all need maintenance and are all going to experience problems at one time or another. If you take proper care and have IT professionals that perform proactive maintenance on your network, you can avoid most of the pitfalls. But, even if you do manage to avoid 99% of issues, that 1% can still get you.
We have also all learned that running a business is not necessarily a 9-5 job. In fact, with the high demand these days for instant availability and response, keeping a successful business running almost seems like a 24-7 job. It is not outside the realm of the norm now to have people working after hours and on weekends in order to meet and exceed quotas, and to keep everything on track so your business can continue to surpass expectations.
What this also means though, is that you need your IT system to stay up and running as long as you have employees who need to be working- and that includes after-hours and weekends. These days, with people working ’round the clock, it doesn’t matter when your IT network experiences an issue- it will still have the same scale of an impact as if it were during normal business hours.
That means it’s just as important for your IT professionals to be available after-hours. And, not necessarily just a help desk, but the engineers who are familiar with your system and understand how critical it is to have your network running smoothly as soon as possible.
That’s why, at Network Depot, we worked out a system where you actually have the ability to speak with a regular engineer almost 24-7.
Network Depot’s After-Hours IT support System
While our office hours are 8am-5pm, Monday through Friday, we do have an engineer who is always “on call”. This is one of our trained engineers, and they are on call 7 days a week, from 6am to 11pm. This means that 2 hours before we open, 6 hours after we close, and almost all day during the weekends you will still be able to reach an engineer.
We have our system worked out so that if you call after-hours, you dial in to the main number and choose the option to leave a voicemail for after-hours IT support. This immediately sends a page to the on-call engineer, who typically will return the call within 15 minutes.
We also make sure to have a rotating system for the after-hours IT support on-call engineer. That way every one of our engineers gets the experience, and no one engineer gets burned out from being on call too much.
Monitoring 24/7
Another system we have in place to help serve customers 24/7 is the monitoring alerts. We have these set up so that whenever a critical issue occurs, such as a server outage, the on-call engineer is immediately notified. Most of the time our system catches the issue before you even notice it, and we are able to fix it quickly so that downtime is minimal to non-existent.
24X7 Help Desk
We have worked hard to design an after-hours IT support system that we think serves the needs of most businesses, even those who work after normal business hours. However, there are some clients that need to be able to reach someone at 2 in the morning, and can’t wait until our after-hours engineer is on-call at 6am. For these businesses, we also have the option of an outsourced help desk. This means that while they won’t be able to reach our engineers around the clock, they will be able to reach a real person who should be able to help them with their issue. While we have found that most clients don’t need this extra feature, we do have it available for clients who want it.
Running a business is tough, and keeping it successful in today’s market is even tougher. It requires a lot of time and effort from every member of the company. Your company’s IT network is an important member of that team, and without it, your business would not be able to run. That’s why it is essential to make sure that whenever you’re working, your IT is working for you. Even after normal business hours.