6 Signs Your Business Has the Right Remote IT Support Services

signs you have good remote support

Remote support is a lifeline to businesses that need immediate help for their in-house IT or workers trying to salvage a workday. Having an effective remote support company as part of a business’ safety net can be the difference between hours of downtime and lost business and getting back on track in a few short minutes. Understanding whether you have good remote IT support services or need an upgrade is a simple matter of ensuring the organization embodies these six positive signs.

Automation Takes Care of Simple Requests

One sign of a great remote support company is that many of the simple solutions are available as part of a self-service platform. For example, some remote support businesses will allow a client to log in to their account and access a list of common solutions to various problems. If the network is not acting properly and needs to be reset, it can be done automatically and remotely without requiring intervention from remote support agents or technicians.

The Support Center Has Easy Solutions for Customers

How hard is it for your business to get the solutions they need from the remote support company? Do you need to go through menu after menu to get to the tools that you already need? That should not be the case. A good remote support company knows what its customers need and make it simple for them to get to it. For example, live customer support should be available upon request at every point during the support interaction instead of being locked behind page after page of customer responses.

Remote Support is Fully Integrated on the Business’ Site

A business should not have to request remote support for an issue. The ability to access direct remote support should be integrated into the customer’s journey. That way, when they are putting in a support ticket, clients can see that they have a direct line to help when they are suffering from a serious problem.

The Business Solves Issues and Prevents the Next Ones

Remote support businesses understand that problems tend to cascade into others. If a company with HIPAA implications has a risk assessment performed and it comes back and shows serious deficiencies, then the next problem will be how to secure their workplace. That issue requires personnel training, new security measures, and more. Your remote support should anticipate your future needs after they identify your immediate problem and offer solutions.

The Remote Support Teams Actively Work Together

A good remote support company will have seamless interactions between their technicians in the field and agents in the remote office settings. That means the total amount of time to solve a problem should be very low if you have remote support and a technician on the same task. Furthermore, the technician should come to the job site with a good idea about how to quickly fix the problem because they have been informed by the remote support agents.

Most Issues Are Resolved Remotely

Every call to your support center should not result in a technician coming to your workplace and adding billable hours. A remote support company is most useful because it solves problems without stepping foot in a business. Remote support techs visiting your site should not be a common occurrence when most solutions can be delivered over the internet. Of course, there are some cases where work must happen in-person.

If your business is lacking these six signs, then it may be time for a switch to a provider like AE Technology Group. As a Managed Services Provider with over two decades of experience helping customers, and a member of the WheelHouse IT family, AE Technology Group has what it takes to swiftly help clients get the support they need. Their offices in Fort Lauderdale, Long Island, and Los Angeles allow them to deliver on-site and remote support to small and medium-sized businesses in the busiest corporate hubs in the U.S.

Proactive Customer Services Are Keeping Business Running Fluidly

proactive customer service

2020 has been filled with challenges and many small and medium-sized businesses have been put through the ringer. With everything going on, and many things causing obstructions to business-as-usual, getting out in front of the things you can control can pay great dividends for your business. Today, we’ll take a look at how the managed service provider can help you stay on top of everything.

What It Means to Be Proactive

A lot of business is preventing major swaths of downtime. Seriously, the more downtime you have, the less you get done. There are plenty of risks inherent in doing business, so being more proactive allows you to mitigate them more effectively. Think about it, a problem pops up in your business, you immediately stop what you are doing to fix the problem, which takes you away from the productive endeavor you were working on. By being proactive, however, you ensure that no problem exists, making certain that your time is used productively. If the effectiveness of your business comes down to the amount of time you can focus on it, being interrupted with constant problems to fix destroys that focus.

Avoiding Downtime

Your business isn’t some publicly-traded, multi-national company. If the most lucrative businesses faced even an hour of downtime, they are wasting six, sometimes, seven figures worth of capital. That’s why they routinely write proactive measures into their processes.

For your business, the amount of wasted capital will be substantially less, but it might just be a larger percentage of revenue lost or capital spent. This can sink your business; and, it doesn’t just come from having to stop what you are doing. Downtime can be problematic in these ways as well:

  • Customer frustration – Your relationships are extremely important. Too much downtime can have a major negative impact on your customer relations. Not only will customers be inconvenienced, they will let you know it. This time spent smoothing everything over can get extremely expensive, especially for the small business that needs their people to be productive, not engaging in costly support roles.
  • Staff frustration – As hinted at in the previous paragraph, many small businesses rely on their staff to do more than one job. One of those jobs isn’t always fun. That is a customer service representative. Many employees–especially if they were hired for a specific purpose–tend to get fed up when they have to spend a large chunk of their work life supporting a faulty product.
  • Exorbitant cost – Cost will always come with downtime. If you are paying people who should be building your product or service to sit around dealing with downtime, you are wasting valuable capital.

By being proactive you are effectively controlling the amount of downtime your organization has to deal with.

Being Proactive!

At AE Technology Group, we offer a couple proactive services that could really make a difference in the profitability and efficiency of your business. They include.

  • Remote monitoring – Your hardware and network need to be in tip-top shape for your staff to be as productive as they can be. By remotely monitoring your entire IT infrastructure, our knowledgeable technicians can find even the smallest incongruency. Doing so before downtime has a chance to rear its head and affect your business works to keep downtime to a minimum and productivity high.
  • Cloud computing – Moving some of your IT to the cloud is a proactive move as public cloud resources are typically managed by the provider. Having a cloud provider take on the comprehensive management of your IT, while also gaining anytime, anywhere access, is a sound strategy for any-sized business.
  • Patch management – Software vulnerabilities can be a major problem for your business if the wrong people find out about them. Our team keeps your software patched and up to date.

Building a proactive business strategy can help you get out in front of some really difficult problems. Call our IT experts today to learn more at (877) 771-2384.

Why Use Managed Services in NYC?

managed services nyc

Managed Services are becoming a more popular option for NYC-based businesses that require IT support, security, and Cloud computing outcomes. With so many companies in this busy market securing these services, one has to ask why it has become such a popular offering. A brief overview of the situation reveals that Managed Services in NYC provide low-cost and local services that mitigate damage from downtime in one of the busiest places in the business world.

Managed Services Offer Expert Workers Without Onboarding

A popular reason for businesses to utilize Managed Services is that there is no need for a lengthy and expensive onboarding process for new workers. In fact, many companies that utilize IT services in their company are not hiring full-time staff at all. These businesses rely on companies like AE Technology Group, a WheelHouse IT company, to provide world-class IT services without having to keep someone on the payroll. By doing so, any business will reduce its costs, increase the effectiveness of the work completed, and have a much better chance of having any niche requirements fulfilled by the workers. Instead of hiring staff for IT solutions and more, it’s quicker, easier, and cheaper to hire a Managed Services team.

Our Location Reduces Costs

AE Technology Group has the benefit of being close to NYC while being far enough away to avoid the costs of operating in the city. AE Technology Group has branches on Long Island and in Fort Lauderdale, well outside of the five boroughs of New York City. As a result, the costs of doing business with this Managed Services Provider is often much lower than one would find in the city itself. Any company seeking Managed Services can save money on costs and still receive local business solutions by working with the Long Island branch.

Reduced Downtime Means You Lose Less

The word “downtime” strikes fear into every business manager that is operating in New York City. Every minute that your computers are not processing orders or helping workers get the information they need it means they’re losing money. The only way to stay on top of the busiest city on the planet is by having the best support available. Managed Services can help get your systems back online so that business can resume. AE Technology Group has years of expertise in IT, security, Cloud systems, and backups, meaning that the workers have seen and done it all. Many situations can be resolved off-site, too, reducing the time that it would take to have another business come into the city and diagnose the issue. Safeguard your business against lost time and work with local professionals.

AE Technology Group has Managed Services that provide fast, local, and inexpensive solutions to your everyday business problems. Your small or medium-sized company can feel confident not having an in-house IT department, saving the business time and money while ensuring that the work is completed by experts. Working with a third-party does not mean you are outsourcing the work to a faraway country that doesn’t mind your work hours. AE Technology Group is less than an hour away and poised to help at any time.

Give us a call at (516) 536-5006 or click here to request a quote.

Do Long Island Physicians Need Managed Services to Be Essential?

do long island physicians need managed services to be essential

2020 has been a challenging year for many industries and the healthcare industry is no exception. While many health professionals saw a significant influx of patients from COVID-19, others in healthcare suffered from a lack of patients due to government-mandated lock downs. Although many industries are back on the road to recovery, they are still looking for ways to manage costs in order to prepare for a future that remains a bit uncertain. Today we’re discussing if Long Island physicians need Managed Services and what they provide.

Challenging Times

Even before the pandemic occurred, 59% of healthcare CIOs were reporting increased operating pressures, with 41% reporting funding shortfalls. With the advent of the pandemic, many healthcare budgets experienced dramatic reductions, even as new technologies were needed in order to meet the demands of increased social distancing and higher levels of sanitization within physical spaces.

It should come as no surprise then that every aspect of healthcare, including supporting technologies, have come under budgetary scrutiny. Smaller and recently merged healthcare systems are now looking for ways to continue to have access to all the latest technologies, even while facing significant budgetary pressures. 

Managing Costs with Managed Services

One of the ways in which smaller healthcare settings can reduce costs is by partnering with a managed service provider for their technology needs. One of the great aspects of managed services is that they can easily be scaled up or down as demand requires. This means physicians and smaller clinics only need to pay for services they truly need. If the time comes where they have a need for increased services, they can easily obtain only those additional services they require, without getting locked into a long-term commitment.

Insightful Service

While those in the healthcare industry do need to find ways to cut costs, they must still maintain a high level of service to their patient, as well as adhere to industry standards and HIPAA-compliant protocols. By partnering with a managed service provider, physicians and those in smaller healthcare settings can ensure that all of their supportive technology is properly assessed and monitored to meet compliance standards. 

Security

Since the advent of the pandemic, multiple technology sites noted a dramatic increase in data breaches and other security issues. Beginning in early 2020, data hackers and thieves decided it would be a good time to take advantage of the increased chaos and uncertainty, and significantly ramped up their exploitative efforts. Now more than ever, it’s vital for even smaller clinics and independent physicians to ensure their technology hardware and software tools can withstand increased cyber attacks.

By partnering with a MSP, even healthcare professionals who do not have access to the technology centers found in larger hospitals, can have premiere security protection. A reliable technology service provider makes it their business to stay abreast of current security challenges in order to ensure their clients remain fully protected from both external and internal data threats.

Looking to Learn More?

If you are a physician or small health clinic in the Long Island area who is looking for a comprehensive 24/7/365 solution for your technology needs, including mobile initiatives, collaboration tools, security protection, remote solutions, and more, we can help. Please contact us today. 

Should I Hire An IT Guy Or An MSP?

should i hire an it guy or an msp

Keeping your tech operational is key to helping your business stay on track, and it’s likely you’ve considered a traditional IT team to handle your computer problems. However, sometimes a managed service provider (MSP) can have a lot of benefits over traditional IT. Read on to see if you should hire an IT guy or an MSP.

MSP And IT: What’s The Difference?

Businesses who use traditional IT rely on a person or department within the business to handle any tech problems. Some of their main functions include installing new hardware or software, configuring networks, troubleshooting problems, solving connectivity issues, making sure computer networks are secure, and many other things that happen behind the scenes of your business. IT people are paid members of the staff. One of the main drawbacks of an IT person or team is that their knowledge and time can be limited. 

On the other hand, an MSP puts an entire team of knowledgeable experts at your fingertips. They are always there, whenever you need their services. Unlike an IT team that works on-site at your business, an MSP works remotely. While many businesses may see this as a drawback when it comes to hiring an IT guy or an MSP, but an MSP is usually only a quick phone call away. 

Benefits Of An MSP

There are plenty of benefits of hiring an MSP to handle your information technology systems. For example, they’re always there when you need them. Unlike a traditional IT team, they don’t call out sick or take vacations, which means that no matter when something goes wrong, you’ll be able to get it fixed quickly. And tech problems don’t always happen during normal working hours.  An MSP is often on call 24/7.

One of the biggest benefits of using an MSP, though, is the depth of experience and knowledge they can offer you. An MSP is comprised of professionals who all have different levels of expertise and useful skill sets. They have diverse qualifications and can collaborate whenever it’s required. A traditional IT team just doesn’t have the same level of knowledge that an MSP has. This means they can help you spot problems in your systems before they even arise. They can offer preventative measures, while an IT team may only fix problems after they happen. 

Another great thing about an MSP is that they are an extremely affordable option for many businesses. Hiring IT onto your staff means you have to pay them, even when they have downtime. In the long run, an MSP can save your business money, and they often offer a range of service options, so you can find something that fits into your budget. And as your businesses grow, you can scale up their services to meet your needs. 

MSP – The Right Choice For Your Business?

No matter what size your business is, when it comes to hiring an IT guy or an MSP, an MSP is a great choice. They offer a range of options at the right price and the reassurance that you will always have tech support on hand if something goes wrong.

An MSP can handle all your tech needs so you can worry about making sure your business keeps running smoothly. Before hiring an MSP, make sure they have the right training and certification for their team members. Read reviews online and talk with their team so that you know they’ll be a good fit.

If you’re looking to hire an MSP with the skills and expertise your business needs to be successful, contact us for more information.