When you’re running a business your time has a value – as does the time of every member of your team.  And we’re not just talking about the hourly rate you pay each member of your team, employing people has lots of other costs; holiday pay, sick pay, tax, insurance, pension, office space, working equipment – and that’s just for starters.

When you or your team are trying to do things that are not in your skillset, not only does it eat up time, but often generates more challenges further down the track.

Technology is one of those things we all use on a daily basis, but few really understand how it works, other than a few sketchy details.

When your technology is misbehaving, why spend hours trying to get it back in line, when you can get an expert on the case, who often can fix the problem remotely in a couple of clicks.

How serious is it, really?

Sometimes things start as an irritating minor issue, like Outlook doing something unexpected, but, as long as it goes unaddressed the user’s time and attention is diverted.  How long is it before that is a cost to the company?

Often clients tell us “There’s nothing wrong, it’s just slow.”  That means there IS something wrong.  How much more efficient would the user be, if their computer was running at the proper speed?

Do you know how much time is wasted when someone clicks ‘print’ and the required document doesn’t appear in the printer tray?  How many times do they try again or find a different way to get the result they want?  We’ve found situations where people are actually printing documents at home, because the work printer isn’t talking to their computer.

Of course, sometimes there aren’t any work arounds.  What happens when you boot up your computer and you just get a black screen?  Is it a connection?  Is it the screen or the computer?  How do you find out when you can’t see anything?

If you really want to know how critical your tech is to your business, turn off the broadband network for 10 minutes.  The whole business grinds to a halt, very quickly!

Education first

Some problems can be avoided with a little common sense.  Ensure all your team are aware of the dangers of phishing and don’t click anything they’re not 100% sure is bona fide.

Teach everyone to reboot their computer before asking for technical help – it can save a lot of time.

But also, educate them to ask for help, rather than waste hours trying to fix it themselves.

Every business is different and setting up tech support that caters to your needs is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’.  You don’t want to waste your senior team’s time trying to work out how to pin an application to their task bar, or switching Outlook from dark to light mode.

You need to have someone on the case to ensure that all your equipment is up-to-date and secure, so when Microsoft updates the operating system, all your machines are ready for it.

The other plus of having technical support on call is that part of the process of setting it up is to ensure that everyone is using the technology they have to its full potential.  Does everyone in the team know what’s available to them, just in the MS365 suite?

Are you using OneDrive or SharePoint cloud storage – and which is the best solution for you?  Do you get MS alerts?

How secure is your network?  Are you protected from viruses and malware?

The monthly cost of a remote tech support service is about the same as a mobile phone contract.  You and your team don’t need to try and work out why it’s not working, just ask the experts!