Reliable IT Support in Atlanta
Our Goal: No Callbacks!
The 360 Altanta IT Support and Maintenance Team is not a helpdesk, it’s a part of your business. We like to think of ourselves as employees in your company and we take great care to ensure that our staff is very well-versed in your systems and business model. Our engineers are trained to be courteous and helpful under all circumstances and are never incentivized for time spent on support. We are leading the way in small business IT support in Atlanta with our MIS solutions in a myriad of ways.
We understand that no one likes having to spend time on the phone with support staff. We strive to fix your issue without shuffling you between engineers. We also spend the required time maintaining your systems. Believing that proper preventative maintenance reduces the need for support, we have adopted sophisticated methods to minimize support calls. We track and escalate issues outside of customer hours to see how we can control the time spent on support. Internally, we follow a continuous cycle of improvement. All issues are looked at on the basis that we have to solve the problem and then figure out how to prevent it from happening again.
Although we understand no one wants to have to call support, we strive to make the experience as pleasant and painless as possible.
Your IT system with all of its interconnected subsystems is not an off the rack machine tool. It’s not a set and forget system. It is a unique, living environment that constantly adapts and morphs into hopefully the correct tool for the job at hand. Proactive maintenance and support of this environment is probably the most important but frequently overlooked factor in achieving the lowest true cost of IT support.
360 Smart Networks, arguably one of the best IT companies in Atlanta, understands that for every hour spent on pro-active maintenance, we can save almost three hours in ad-hoc support time. As an Atlanta-based IT support company, 360 Smart Networks has built an interconnected support environment that provides the required systems and protocols to keep your system functioning at peak efficiency.
Our base set of values and our underlying business model was designed from day one to achieve a different goal than other Atlanta managed service providers. Our goal is to spend the least amount of time required to provide an excellent service and our business model was designed to incentivize us to achieve this.
By providing proactive technology management and maintenance, we are able to determine a fixed cost to provide unlimited on-site and remote support. As part of our TekSurance program, we also provide 24/7 monitoring, emergency after-hours support, and a fully staffed Atlanta-based helpdesk. Unlike many Managed Service providers in Atlanta, we do not believe in providing an outsourced service with outsourced resources, and, as such, all of our employees are W2 with full benefits (PTO, medical, retirement etc.) – This allows us to keep very tight control of quality and provide continuous outstanding service.
Managed IT Service Providers in Atlanta often overlook the fact that proper maintenance starts with knowledge of the environment. They start their engagement with minimal effort involved in finding out what they will be responsible for. This, in turn, leads to long average ticket resolution times and knowledge islands. How many companies tolerate less than stellar customer service because they only trust a one person at their Managed service provider?
360 Smart Networks addresses this by kicking off all of our engagements with the most comprehensive on-boarding project possible. Our goal is not only to install all the components needed for Security and backup but to also gather and document everything needed to be able to support the client going forward. The information gathered during this phase is also vital to determine what long-term technology planning will look like.
Some of the information we gather and document during our onboarding project includes:
• Full networks diagrams
• Access passwords
• Full 3rd party provider information – account number, contact numbers, circuit numbers
• Full new-user hardware requirements
• New-user policies and procedure
• User policies and procedure in the event of termination of user
• Hardware warranty renewal information
• Software maintenance renewal information
• Domain renewal and DNS information
• Web-based services configuration and manuals
We have as our goal, the creation of a living manual that can be used by 360 Smart Networks to most efficiently support and maintain your existing system and determine what if anything need to be done to reduce support hours. 360 Smart Networks also understand that the information gathered during this process is incredibly sensitive. In fact, we understand that as a potential security liability the information we need to provide our services is probably second to none. With this in mind, we have incredible security on all information we manage. All sensitive and potentially sensitive information is stored in encrypted form only accessible via dual factor authentication times two.
Once we are finished with the on-boarding project, we hand the client to our support department who then takes care of all the day to day maintenance and support issues.
During office hours clients can send emails to support, call directly or open support request using our online support portal. After hours, we have engineers on standby to respond to tickets and requests sent in via email or voicemail.
The systems we install during onboarding are closely integrated with our support subsystem and continuously monitor our clients for errors, anomalies and security incidences. Our systems have the capability of alerting us to potential hardware failures, breaches, malware/virus infections, and unauthorized software installations. The issues are moved to our helpdesk system and attended-to in order of severity.
Unlike many other Managed IT support Service Providers in Atlanta, 360 Smart Networks actually monitors our automated systems very closely on a continuous basis. Whether it’s a breach, virus, or failing hard drive, we have the systems and protocols in place to make sure we keep unplanned outages to a minimum.
As part of our Maintenance and Support department responsibilities, we also make sure that we have sufficient patch levels in place on all maintained systems. We patch for security vulnerability as soon as the patches are released and then closely monitor service packs and other enhancements after release to make sure all maintenance releases are stable.
The net effect of the system we have developed over the years is that most of the work we perform happens in the background. A machine that may be running low on disk space, for instance, could cause a major outage and freeze. Our system alerts us of the issue before it’s a problem, allowing us to rectify the situation with minimal or no client input.
IT Support and Managed Service Providers in Charlotte NC have a tendency to base their support levels off of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and lock in clients using long-term 1 or 2-year support contracts. 360 Smart Networks believes in contextual SLAs and continuously justifying their existence. This means that we understand that even though a single printer is down and it only affects a single user, it may be a code red emergency – The CEO is trying to print documentation for a $100 million deal that needs to be sent out in 5 minutes… Traditional SLAs would classify this is a low priority.
Once we have our support teams fully engaged, we also start our support feedback loop. Every issue and request is digested and handled first, but then looped back into the system to see if there are any actions we can take to make sure that next time the same issue is handled in less time or better yet, doesn’t occur. Over time, this allows us to become increasingly efficient and spend our time on more productive endeavors such as technology planning or strategic consulting and budgeting.
All Break/Fix IT Support and the vast majority of Managed IT Support companies in Atlanta spend the majority of their time on reactive support issues. This is mainly due to the fact that they do not have their system properly integrated and they don’t understand the massive implication of doing maintenance at the appropriate times during the technology cycle. By actually getting this right, 360 Smart Networks has been able to get ahead of the technology wave. We have the time and information to be able to provide extremely accurate technology and budget planning.
As a standard part of our IT support services in Atlanta, we create and annually update 5-year technology plans for all of our clients. This allows us to very closely align their future business needs with their technical requirements. We keep track and, if needed, automatically renew warranties, subscriptions, and services.
During our budgeting process, we not only specify replacement cycles and technology updates but also run if/then scenarios. Unlike normal vendors, we engage as part of the client’s internal management team to achieve the desired business result.
Unlike normal Managed Service Providers, we do not have to continuously sell more and more systems and services to achieve our internal goals.
As a trusted advisor and expert technologist, we can consult on the right systems for almost any corporation. Internally, we spend an inordinate amount of time on research and development of new technologies and services – only releasing them once we completely understand the impacts from an operational and security perspective.
We also do not have any preference on whether companies have a cloud-based, hybrid, or on-site system. As long as it actually makes sense from a business perspective, we are capable of handling any IT system.
Maintenance and Support cannot be boiled down to a simple service based on a cost per hour or endpoint. It is a complete integrated set of services, systems, and knowledge that form the bedrock of most businesses. Done badly, it can cause untold misery and hidden cost in the form of lost productivity and frustration. Unless you have a comprehensive system with the required protocols in place to take care of your day-to-day and future IT support, you are placing an unnecessary damper on your business growth and continuing success.
Done the 360 way, however, you can rest assured that your IT is being taken care of in the most efficient way possible. Whether you are relying on IT as a direct driver of revenue or as a minimized cost center, there is only one methodology to ensure you have the right tool for the job.
