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.

How and Why You Should Defrag Your Company’s Computers

how and why you should defrag your company computers

how to defrag computer There are a few things you can do to keep your business computers fast and responsive. In this blog we’ll go over how to defrag your computer.

First, you need to understand why defragmentation is necessary. It’s different from clearing up your hard drive to prevent lagging.

A recent Lifehacker article goes over fragmentation and defragmentation and puts them in simple terms:

“When your computer writes data to your drive, it does so in “blocks” … Fragmentation happens when those files get split between blocks that are far away from each other. The hard drive then takes longer to read that file because the read head has to “visit” multiple spots on the platter. Defragmentation puts those blocks back in sequential order, so your drive head doesn’t have to run around the entire platter to read a single file.”

It’s important that you defrag your computer every so often. The good news is that defragging is so easy that any novice user can do it.

Here are the steps of defragging, outlined by Microsoft:

Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the Start button .
Under Current status, select the disk you want to defragment.
To determine if the disk needs to be defragmented or not, click Analyze disk.
Click Defragment disk.
If your employees know how to open and run basic programs, then they’ll be able to defrag their computers. You also don’t have to worry about them messing with any settings.

TIP: While it’s useful to show employees how to defrag their computers, it’s even better to just set up a defragmentation schedule. This way, employees don’t have to go through the process once every week. It’ll get done on a weekly or monthly basis at a time they choose. We recommend setting up schedules with the other maintenance programs Microsoft offers.

To talk more about defragging your computer, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

Microsoft Sharepoint Online and the ‘5 Pillars of SharePoint Governance’

microsoft sharepoint online and the 5 pillars of sharepoint governance
Sharing a milkshake

At first glance, the joy of owning Microsoft Sharepoint online may be a bit overwhelming due to its vast array of features, particularly in the absence of an overall implementation plan.

Often, SharePoint’s is seen in a “singular” context to provide more efficient—and secure— document management and collaborative integration throughout the organization.

Often overlooked, are the software’s other capabilities, such its ease in developing and maintaining the company’s Intranet; too, select vendors can be given limited access to team member documents during a project.

The overall success in launching, training and maintaining the SharePoint suite can be summed up by reviewing the “5 Pillars of SharePoint Governance” with ‘security’ being the first on the list; the other remaining Pillars (auditing, reliability, usability and supportability) are also key to securing content; this, through designating user permissions, for example, not to mention keeping the network up-to-date with the most recent patches.

One of the methods of overseeing the platform to make sure it is meeting a “business goal or objective” is to appoint one Business Owner of the suite who works with the technical team ensure the untapped potential of SharePoint will ultimately evolve toward meeting those objectives.

It’s an age-old problem of overcoming people’s resistance to change, and bringing SharePoint on board pushes the envelop for many users: they need to be shown “the value in the change.”

As Jennifer Mason points out on CMSWire:

“…the trick is to know where you want to be, to start small and keep growing. You may be using SharePoint as a way to centrally store documents today, but as long as you keep the forward momentum, who knows where you’ll be three months from now?”

Furthermore, it isn’t about getting it SharePoint up and running to it’s maximum potential from the outset. More so, the successful users started “small” with an eye to adding features when the modules were understood.

Today’s successful businesses understand how important it is to use the right technology to maintain their competitive advantage. Contact us to learn more about implementing cloud-service tools like SharePoint, or why more and more clients are coming to rely on us as their managed service provider.

Cloud Network Migration is the Wave of the Future

cloud network migration is the wave of the future

Having all of your personal, or business files on your computers hard drive takes up a lot of space. Most people run out of their computers hard drive space eventually. One option is to set up your own network, but that is difficult and time consuming. Migrating your files to a secure cloud based service is the wave of the future.

When you take part in cloud network migration, you’re migrating your files from your computer, onto a cloud. A cloud is a server center where files are stored, processed, and shared through, rather than a local network.

Why should you choose to use the cloud? First of all, it is much more convenient than having your own server in your work space or home. That can take up a lot of money, and space. When you use a cloud, you don’t have to host the network, and someone else monitors it for you. It takes the stress off of you, but still leaves you with the advantage of storing your files onto a network. If you were previously just using the hard drives in your office’s computers, then you know how hard it is to manage space. Hard drives only have so much space. Clouds have much more room to store data onto.

Some people are worried about clouds not being secure. This isn’t true. Clouds are just as secure as your very own network would be, and they’re often even more secure.

One thing you can do to minimize the chance of a hacker getting into your files is creating a password that is very hard to guess. Make it case sensitive, with numbers, and as long as you’d like. Remember, the harder the better, because it’s being used to protect your files.
Altogether, getting your files onto a cloud network can be very helpful. Clouds are just as secure as your own network, and it also takes the stress off of you to manage a network. Migrate your files to a cloud today!

Disaster Prevention: How Can the Cloud Prevent an IT Disaster?

disaster prevention how can the cloud prevent an it disaster

If you or someone you know has a small or medium sized business (SMB) that was affected by recent natural disasters then there was probably a period of time that the business was inoperable; without power, internet access, or a combination of the two.

AE Technology Group has developed new creative, cost-effective solutions to ensure that even if you have no electricity or internet on location, files and software can be still be accessed from another location to keep business flowing.

If losing your power and Internet access was the only issue, you may be considered one of the luckier ones. Many local businesses who have not yet come to bring their networks to the sky lost hardware, software, and data to floods and power surges. With cloud computing and disaster recovery this is no longer an issue, as the data is always available to you, safe and secure in another location with multiple backups and power generators.

Cloud computing is the future of computing, and you won’t want to be left behind. It will allow your business to easily grow and integrate as it expands, allowing you to do business on a global scale.

AE Technology Group can integrate cloud solutions for you, call us at (877) 771-AETG to discuss options or e-mail us!