Managed IT Services In Connecticut

Questions to Ask a Prospective Connecticut Managed IT Services Provider Before Signing a Contract

When your business needs help keeping up with growing customer demands for fast, affordable turnaround and delivery, proactive managed IT services in Connecticut can give you the competitive edge your business needs. A managed IT services provider (MSP) is a technology (IT) services provider that manages and provides all the services required of an internal IT department. They may act as a fully outsourced IT department or they may supplement your existing IT staff.

Most businesses don’t have an extensive budget to hire a bevy of specialized IT professionals or to invest in cutting edge technology that has to be replaced every other year. Using an MSP can give you the ability to increase your business’s productivity and network security while improving your employees’ job satisfaction–all for the monthly cost of about one person’s salary.

But before you hand over the keys to the kingdom, you want to make sure that the IT services company you hire is the right fit for your business. Even if you received a reliable recommendation, you have to ensure that they have experience managing networks similar to your own, that they understand the technology needs of your industry, and that they offer more than just rote IT services.

When you hire a managed IT services company in Connecticut, you should be looking for a technology partner–a company that offers proactive technology solutions and that can act as a virtual CIO for your company. Here are some revealing questions you should be asking before you hire any managed IT services company.

1. Do You Outsource Your Monitoring, Help Desk, or Any Other Managed IT Services to a Third-Party Provider in Connecticut?

When you choose your managed IT services in Connecticut, you want to deal with people who are familiar with your industry and the ins and outs of your area’s internet service providers, tech repair shops, and device disposal regulations. For that kind of intuitive, local knowledge, you likely need to hire a local company that doesn’t outsource your services to a third-party.

At Realized Solutions, the core of our business is providing our clients with the tools and information they need to successfully grow their business–and we never outsource that passion. We are experts in running a fully-functional, comprehensive, strategic IT department that is obsessed with delivering stellar customer service and providing impenetrable security for your organization. All managed IT services are delivered by our full-time internal team in Connecticut.

2. What Managed IT Services in Connecticut Do You Offer to Prevent or Minimize Downtime?

We know that employee productivity is crucial for generating revenue and delivering goods and services to your customers in a timely manner. With that in mind, we implement a number of best practices to help prevent any downtime in your network. We design your IT infrastructure using an arrangement of redundant systems–switches, firewalls, multiple internet connections, and backup systems–to keep your business running under almost any circumstances.

We provide proactive managed IT services to your Connecticut company to ensure that your technology infrastructure is properly maintained and regularly updated to prevent downtime. We try to schedule any lengthy network updates to run overnight, on the weekends, or otherwise outside of your business hours.

3. What Do Your Availability and Response Times Look Like?

At Realized Solutions, your technical support calls are answered by our Service Desk team and then staffed by one or more of our technicians. Our office hours are 9 am to 5 pm EDT, Monday through Friday. However, we also offer a Client Portal for our clients through which they can submit tickets, find answers to basic help questions, and view their network dashboard.

Our goal is to help you deal with your technology issues as quickly and efficiently as possible.

4. How Are You Monitoring Our Infrastructure to Ensure It Hasn’t Been Hacked?

To ensure that your systems are running efficiently and securely, you should make certain that your managed IT services provider in Connecticut is constantly monitoring your network’s infrastructure. Updates, patches, and the proactive discovery of any weaknesses in security can mean the difference between business as usual and days of productivity lost to ransomware, hijacking, or other cyberattacks.

Our network administrators are responsible for the configuration, monitoring, and management of your network’s infrastructure. They build automated processes into your network to remotely monitor the health of your IT systems and software and correct any issues that arise as soon as they appear. The same team is also responsible for leveraging AI and machine learning systems to track and stop cybercriminals from penetrating your security measures.

5. Will You Assign a Dedicated Technical Resource to Manage Our Network?

It’s great to have a whole team of IT professionals at your fingertips, but often it’s even more helpful to have a dedicated technician or manager who is familiar with your network’s quirks and intricacies. Every company’s IT infrastructure is unique and you shouldn’t have to waste time diving into detailed explanations every time you want to make a small change to your email or firewall settings.

At Realized Solutions, many of our clients have been with us for over a decade, and we firmly believe that’s the result of our personal, customized IT solutions. We tailor our services to expand and contract with your business’s goals and needs.

All of our consultants are experienced in optimizing your IT solutions to ensure that you are getting the greatest value possible from your technology investments. When you work with us, you’ll know the names of each of your technicians and IT managers, and be able to reach them directly.