Your Questions Answered

What do your support contracts cover?

We provide support on anything that you would expect to see on a typical network. Specific areas that we cover include workstations, operating systems and applications, printers, routers, switches, hubs, network infrastructure, Internet connections, firewalls… basically if anything goes wrong on your network, we would be your first point of contact.

What operating systems and applications do you cover?

We cover all Microsoft operating systems and applications,

So do you sell hardware?

We can supply any hardware, software or licenses you require. But if you prefer to buy your hardware from somewhere else, that’s OK too.

How do you charge for network support?

We charge a basic monthly fee which entitles you to a unlimited hours of support or consultancy per month.

Why do you charge a monthly fee?

Providing effective network support requires that we know your systems inside out. We need to keep detailed records of how everything is configured so that we can respond quickly and safely when you have a problem. We have remote monitoring systems that can warn us in advance of problems before they become critical. And of course we have to provide sufficient resources so that we always have someone available to deal with your call. All of this costs us money, whether or not you have a problem at any given time. We try to keep the monthly fee as low as we can without sacrificing quality or responsiveness.

Are you expensive then?

We and presumably our existing support customers don’t think so. There are network support providers that charge less than we do, and those that charge an awful lot more. We are positioned at the very top of the market in terms of quality, and around half way up in terms of cost. Sometimes we carry out work on behalf of other support providers whose rates are two or three times as high as our own, for the same people doing the same work. We’re certainly a lot cheaper than lost data or a day spent without a working computer system. We have come across systems that were so vulnerable the entire business was hanging by a thread. What price would you put on your business?

What if I don’t have any budget for network support?

It’s simply unrealistic to expect your IT systems to run forever without having any problems, and since they are a crucial business asset it’s equally unrealistic not to have them adequately covered. Think of the monthly charge as being insurance for one of your organisation’s most valuable assets.

How do you respond to problems?

We set up remote links to all of our customers sites. This allows us to take control of cmputers and other critical network components within seconds, so that we can respond to problems immediately. A lot of problems can be fixed within minutes, but if we cannot resolve a problem remotely we will go onsite.

What’s different about you?

No grey areas, no finger-pointing, and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. We see many customers who have been suffering with some sort of problem for months because the hardware supplier says it's a software problem, and the software vendor says it's a hardware problem. We don't operate like that. In most cases our customers don't especially care where the problem lies; they just need it fixed. We operate on a "fix it first; discuss it later" basis and we try to avoid grey areas and finger-pointing at all costs.