7 Things To Ask Your IT Providers This Month (that they may not want to answer)!
Unfortunately, IT companies frequently promise things first and figure out how to deliver later. Some providers are a great resource - providing a missing key that unlocks business potential and helps you meet objectives. But many (if not most) are scrambling to meet minimal service commitments. They're working hard but not necessarily on the right things or in the way that will deliver the best outcomes. Unless you're an expert you might not be able to quickly recognise which type of providers you have in place.
The best way to determine this is to start asking questions. Depending on what services you have in place, there are literally 100s of things you could ask your provider to try and gain clarity - about their services, their support, their teams, and the solutions you receive. There are questions about server security, team structures, employee backgrounds, solution delivery methodologies, and overall support plans.
Just figuring out that list will take weeks! And the more technical the question you ask the more technical the answers you'll receive - meaning you might not get the clarity you're seeking.
But you don't need all the answers to get started! To find out how well the provider understands your business (and their role in it); as well as, how well structured their own operations are to enable optimal delivery capability, ask them these 7 questions first:
Do we have the right mix of IT services in place? You're asking this because you want to know how much they've thought about what you 'should' have - rather than what you do have. You want a vendor that is proactively thinking about the best services to help you deliver your objectives.
Is the contract (including the SLAs) indicative of the services provisioned, and have the SLAs been reviewed and adapted to ensure they are targeting the right things for my business? You might be surprised how many clients I've worked with that either have no contracts or have contracts that don't accurately reflect what is being provided (and invoiced). You want to know that they are tracking your contract and ensuring the agreements on service levels that are included actually make sense for your business.
How well are you providing the services you offer us today? What could you be doing better? All services and processes have opportunities for improvement. Ask this question to challenge them. They should be thinking about this without you asking, but their answer will give you a great deal of insight into their views on transparency with you on what's working. The best services are provided with transparency so everyone is clear on what's great, what's sufficient, and what needs attention.
What are your team retention rates and how often will we get new team members assigned to us? The IT industry as a whole has employee retention problems. A constant stream of new support personnel could be problematic for your business depending on the providers onboarding and training protocols. A really good company will be happy to talk about their retention and turnover rates.
How often do you conduct disaster recovery exercises to ensure you can restore our systems in the event of a catastrophic failure? Disaster Recovery planning and practice is critical for any business that uses an IT system they rely on to operate. If that's you and your provider hasn't conducted a disaster recovery procedure (with your active involvement) get in front of this asap. Note that its very common for IT companies to defer these over and over until years have gone by without a DR test.
How are you ensuring our IT environment stays safe and is protected from security vulnerabilities or direct attacks? The easy answers here will be about antivirus, malware detection, and patches, but hopefully you'll get more. Ask them to provide as much detail as possible so you can be sure you feel well covered. If in doubt, consider bringing in an external provider to review the approach. This is especially important if you have customer data on your systems.
What technology opportunities are we missing that could be progressing our strategies at a faster pace? This is their chance to show you they know about your business strategy and can help you achieve the future versions of your business.
None of these questions will give you definitive information on the performance of your service provider as a full service performance assessment requires more data; however, these questions can start a dialogue increasing engagement with your provider and ensuring they are truly working for you and your business. If your IT provider doesn't engage, it might be a sign that you need to look more fully into what they're doing for you and if there are better options.
