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7 Questions to Ask your Managed Services Provider

In many aspects of life, we look to experts for guidance. We hire electricians and plumbers to ensure our homes are safe and well-functioning. We seek mechanics for assistance with our vehicles. So, when it comes to the security and efficiency of our businesses, it’s no surprise that we turn to the expertise of a managed service provider, or MSP. 

Working with an MSP can be a cost-effective way to ensure your company's technology and security is running at optimal levels. Many MSPs can offer your company a number of digital solutions to keep your business running, from communication and cybersecurity solutions to backup and recovery to networking monitoring and support. Especially if you have limited IT staff or resources at your organization, MSPs provide your business with all the benefits of a full-time IT staff at a fraction of the cost. 

MSPs also leverage the latest industry trends and best practices to drive business value and growth in a secure, competitive, and scalable way. The 2020 State of IT report estimates that in 2020, just under half of businesses plan to increase their tech spend to allow for system upgrades.

MSPs come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you're exploring a new partnership with an MSP or you have an existing relationship with one, here are seven questions that you should ask to ensure you select the perfect partner for your unique business.

Questions to Ask your Managed Services Provider

1) What services are covered?

One of the first questions to ask is about the capabilities of the MSP. Asking this early on will help protect you from later discrepancies and hidden fees. It’s also a precautionary measure to avoid getting locked into multi-year contracts – especially if you’re only seeking a narrow or time-sensitive service.

MSPs often differ from one another in their offerings and rates, so take time at the onset to form a clear understanding of what your MSP will be providing, what they won’t be providing, and also what is expected from you. A good MSP should be able to help with a robust range of services, including disaster recovery, backup, network support, and cybersecurity. 

It’s also a good idea to ask if the MSP is contractually committed to specific products or vendors, such as Microsoft Office 365 versus Google Apps or G Suite environments. While most reputable MSPs are platform-agnostic, some providers may be preferential to specific tools and platforms that may not be the best fit for your unique business.

2) Do you have a helpdesk?

Among the top MSPs, the helpdesk is one of the most popular offerings available, but not all are created equal. Make sure your MSP offers a 24/7 helpdesk to assist with emergencies and triage your security environment, when you need it. Can you reach the helpdesk in multiple ways – not just by submitting a ticket, but also with a quick email, phone call, or even text message? When it comes to securing your business operations, having a rapid and reliable line of communication to your MSP is critical.

Also, in light of COVID-19 and safer-at-home guidelines, you’ll want to ask about how the managed service provider works. If they are local, do they still offer the same service and attention, remotely, should you need it? If you hire a firm from another region, can they conduct all aspects of the project online or virtually? Will they need to travel for a kick-off meeting or at any milestone moments in the project?

3) What happens if my infrastructure goes down?

A worse-case scenario: your entire system crashes, taking with it your ability to conduct business and protect confidential or financial data. The result of a cyberattack or infrastructure failure can be devastating to your business and, unfortunately, it’s a real and pervasive threat. Nearly half of cyberattacks are aimed at small businesses yet less than 15 percent of these organizations are prepared to defend themselves. More than half of small businesses suffered a breach within the last year. (Further, the chaos of the pandemic and remote work is also fueling an increase in attacks.)

A cyberattack can be costly; incidents at a small business incur an average cost of $200,000, not to mention damages to your reputation and customer confidence.

It's essential to find a provider that is prepared for disaster and who must, at a minimum, have a plan in place should anything happen to your network. If your network fails, can the MSP still access what it needs to restore your data and get you up and running?

4) How will you help support the growth of our business?

A good MSP is a partner. The provider should take the time to get to know your business – not just what you do, but where you hope to take your organization in the future. What’s on the horizon for you, both from the perspective of your leadership team but also as it relates to larger shifts and trends in your industry?

With this knowledge, your MSP should act as a true partner to help you grow your business and achieve your goals through a lens of security, technology, customer experience, workplace transformation, and other initiatives. Choose a company that can scale with you, whether this means helping you develop an easy and cost-effective way to add new workstations, employee accounts, or locations or navigating other more complex and critical IT projects.

A related question is the MSP’s capability for employee education and training. A key aspect of a secure environment is equipping your first line of defense – your team – with the information and resources they need. The same is true of any new technology implementation – often there is a learning curve (and resistance from staff “who have always done it this way”) with new tools, and proper employee training and support is critical. (For more, see this post on five cybersecurity training tips.)

Just as you get to know your managed service provider, they should be getting to know you. It’s a dance!

5) What’s your team like?

Naturally, you’re going to look for a company that will get the job done. Often, you’ll seek one that you can also develop a long-lasting and productive relationship with. But how can you be sure of this? One approach is to understand the structure of the MSP team. Is it a small team? How much experience do they have? What values do they tout (low-cost, always-there service, focused attention, environmentally responsible practices)? What’s important to them?

Start with your own team and business. What matters to you? How does your team work well together? The MSP should represent or share the traits that you value and the ways that you work best. If not, move to the next one.

You should also ask if the MSP team is all in-house or if the provider sub-contracts out to engineers or vendors with specialized expertise? If a small, connected team and focused attention is one of your values, you may not want to partner with a large, national MSP provider – and vice versa.

Just as important, ask the MSP what members of your team will need to be involved with the project. Leadership? Legal or HR? IT? This will help you prepare for the level of time and commitment required on your end.

6) What’s your policy on transparency?

Transparency is key in an MSP. To make the best decisions for your business, it’s important to be able to see the whole picture. After all, transparency is important to your customers, which means transparency should be important to your business. Your customers trust your business to keep their personal information safe; in turn, you need to trust that your MSP does the same for you and your data.

Another outcome of transparency is that you can better delegate accountability and responsibility. In the event of a cyberattack against your business and your information, clearly understanding these roles – and knowing how to quickly reach the experts – could reduce the damages of an attack, saving your company time, money, and reputation.

Any MSP you partner with should have a clear policy and practice of transparency in their culture, processes, approaches, and tools. Ask if the provider has any sort of documentation or statement around transparency, accountability, and responsibility. (For more, see this post on the importance of transparency in an MSP.)

7) What makes you different from other MSPs?

Lastly, ask this straightforward but important question of any potential MSP: What sets you apart? Why should we partner with you?

This should be an easy question for a truly differentiated MSP. Don't look for a canned response, rather ask for references, case studies, and testimonials and listen to what other customers have to say. At N8, our aim is to make IT enjoyable and easy – something many others do not. And we focus on people. We offer not just tailored support, but also a people-first approach to technology, to help ensure user adoption and deliver impactful results. 

We hope this post helps simplify the process of selecting a managed service provider partner. There’s countless MSPs out there – asking these seven questions can help you identify the ideal partner to protect your business and achieve your goals – though we do hope that you select N8 Solutions! We’re confident that we can deliver – and we’re eager to answer these seven questions or any others you may have.

Please reach out today to learn more.