Questions to ask when hiring an IT company in Atlanta

The basics

Okay, these questions may seem way too obvious, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. These preliminary questions need to be asked before hiring an IT company or any other partner business. You want to make sure you are working for a company that not only can meet your needs, but their standards align with your company’s. It’s important to know that you are working with a well-established company that provides quality service and understands your goals.

• How long have they been in business? Atlanta is growing. Are they prepared to grow with the city and you?
• Do they have full-time employees? What is their staff turnover rate? The demand for tech talent in Atlanta is high right now.
• Do they have enough staff members to assist the number of end users your company has?
• Are they close enough to be able to visit your business onsite if an issue arises? Can they handle that infamous Atlanta traffic and still be on time?
• Do they provide training for their employees? Do their employees have up-to-date industry certifications?
• Are they willing to connect you with a current client for a reference?
• How long is their contract period?

The quality and type of support

When you meet with a possible IT support provider, their sales team will provide you with a long list of services they offer. They will toss around a lot of jargon you may or may not be familiar with and try to condense everything they can and will do into an hour-long meeting. All these details can be overwhelming, and it may be hard to picture what the day to day of using their service would be like. You must know how your staff will interact with their employees and ask for help.

• Do they have an in-house helpdesk?
• What is their ticketing system/portal like? How do you submit tickets?
• Do they support third party software (non-Microsoft)?
• Can you get specific services à la carte?
• Are there additional fees for user adds, moves and changes?
• Can they help with technology decisions?
• Will they help with budgeting?
• Do they have after-hour and weekend support?

The technical side

It may be intimidating to ask more technical questions when you don’t have a background in IT, so we tried to narrow it down to a few simple questions. These five questions will help you learn a little more about their daily operations and business practices.

• Do they own or rent a RMM-Remote Management and Monitoring tool?
• Is their NOC (Network Operations Center) or helpdesk outsourced?
• Can they do patch management on servers and desktops?
• Does their remote monitoring tool integrate with their ticketing system?
• Do they use all the tools (security, monitoring, backups, etc.) within their company that they resell?

These questions are a starting point. Make sure to spend some time researching prospective companies and find out what their reputation is in the community. Don’t be afraid to shop around until you find the right company. There are many wonderful IT companies in Atlanta, so you will eventually find the perfect fit. Need an estimate on how much IT services would cost your business? Check out our Atlanta IT Services Pricing Estimator.