Service Level Agreements

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Most of the businesses we deal with are too small to have their own IT Manager or IT Department, or even if they have someone on staff that is their "IT Guru" for the day-to-day niggles, these gurus are rarely as good as a trained IT Technician - else they would probably be an IT Technician instead of their current job role.

Also they may be fine for general issues, but don't have the training or experience if something serious goes wrong, also normally that person is so busy with their own job, the rarely think about things like server monitoring or won't be able to work evenings and weekends to do upgrades, data restores and general housekeeping tasks - which we do every week for our servers.

Ask yourself - would you let someone that just "knows" about the law represent you in a vital court case?

Or would you let someone with no formal training handle your accounts and financial affairs?

Most people don't think about their IT systems as being vital until there not there, all that data, incoming emails and the ability to raise invoices can be crippling to a business in just a few hours, to maintain a healthy, secure and reliable system you will need regular intervention.

That is where having a Service Level Agreement with your chosen IT supplier comes in!

Here at SW Computers Limited we are experts in becoming one of your team, your virtual IT department, getting to know your staff, business and equipment just as a IT Department would - but the best bit - the costs are MUCH lower than a PAYE IT Technician employed, even part-time.

With service agreements from as little as £35 PCM for a small office - even at minimum wage that would only pay for about 6 hours wages - try finding a honest, industry experience, fully qualified Microsoft Certified IT Professional to work for only minimum wage!

What to expect from a Service Agreement?

• Each service agreement is tailored to identify & define the clients needs.

• Provide a framework for understanding

• Simply complex issues such as response time.

• Define 'what is an emergency'

• Define responsibilities of the provider and client i.e. data backup, virus protection

• Schedule daily/weekly/monthly/yearly system updates, checks etc

Basically a Service Agreement is there to define everyone's expectations, which helps smooth the business relationship, prevents disagreements over invoices as all charges and terms will be listed in detail.

Also you will know that things like backups, virus protection, firewall's and other vital system health checks such as hard drive health, windows services are being monitored and looked after - you'll have a direct mobile number to your account manager who will be there to offer friendly advice, telephone and remote support, and you'll know if the circumstances dictate you have someone at your office within the time allocated i.e. within 2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, next-day guaranteed.

Normally we will know about a problem before you do, first thing we will do is check our monitoring software for the last logs, we will then use our remote access tools to check on the servers/computers.

If we can't connect we will presume that there is an Internet connection problem; after confirming there isn't a known problem with your ISP broadband in your area- depending on your level of support we would either advise your onsite guru on rebooting the routers over the telephone which connect to the internet, or we would schedule a callout to come and get you back up and running.

Our Service Agreements are Win-Win - Here's How

• Provides a comprehensive service agreement

• Sets clear expectations on performance and deliverables

• Is specific, objective and meaningful

• Uses meaningful, quantitative measurements.
  (“What services will be performed?” and “How often?”)

• Surveys clients on quality, expectations being met, and responsiveness

• Offers flexibility to renegotiate at regular, agreed upon intervals

• Determines the most important aspects of the services contracted

• Comes from a position of mutual trust
  (Remember, no piece of paper is a substitute for relationship-building)

• Actively manages the client/vendor relationship

• Keeps open lines of communication… always!

Preventative Maintenance

Preventive Maintenance Helps Safeguard Data

• For most small business clients, the information on the hard disk(s) is infinitely more important than the hardware that houses the data.

• Taking steps to protect this information therefore makes sense, and that is what PM is all about.

Preventive Maintenance Improves Performance

• Some parts of systems will actually degrade in performance over time.

• Preventive maintenance helps to improve the speed of overall system and network performance in these respects.

Preventive Maintenance Saves Money

• We’ve all heard the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It’s trite, but it is also true.

• Avoiding problems saves clients money in the long run, compared with laying out cash for new components or repair jobs.

• Most preventive maintenance procedures are quite simple, compared to troubleshooting and repair procedures.

• Emergency repair procedures can consume clients’ IT budgets at alarming rates.

Interested? Email stephen@swcomputers.co.uk or call (01209) 613645