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Frequently Asked Questions

• What do your support contracts cover?
  • We provide support on anything that you would expect to see on a typical network. Specific areas that we cover include servers, workstations, operating systems and applications, printers, routers, switches, hubs, network infrastructure, Internet connections, firewalls… basically if anything goes wrong on your network, we would be your first point of contact.
• What operating systems and applications do you cover?
  • We cover all Microsoft operating systems and applications, most versions of Novell and most UNIX and Linux systems.
• We have a specialist application written by a third party. Would you cover that?
  • A lot of our customers have specialist applications that are written and supported by another supplier. We usually work with the supplier to make sure that their application is happy, and to resolve problems if they arise. We accelerate the process of fixing problems by giving the supplier detailed information about the problem, and by helping them to implement a fix safely and quickly.
• Do you provide hardware maintenance?
  • No. If we investigate a problem that turns out to be caused by faulty hardware, we will work with you and your hardware supplier to order replacement parts and install them for you, but we do not supply the parts themselves. This is because hardware suppliers are much better placed to provide spares and replacement parts, and they can provide hardware maintenance far more cheaply than we could. Most companies these days buy hardware with 3-year warranties, so it’s already covered.
• So you don’t sell hardware?
  • We can supply any hardware, software or licenses you require. But if you prefer to buy your hardware from somewhere else, that’s OK too. We will usually be able to offer a more competitive price on hardware so please feel free to ask for a comparative quote.
• What’s your typical support customer like?
  • We have an enormous range of different customers across all industry sectors. Our smallest support customer has only four employees, whilst our biggest has over a hundred. The difference is that for smaller customers we tend to look after everything, whereas with larger customers we tend to support specific systems, provide additional support to existing support teams, or provide specialist skills.
• How do you charge for network support?
  • We charge a basic monthly fee which entitles you to a certain number of hours of support or consultancy per month. If you need more support than your contract provides, we are happy to provide it for an additional hourly charge. You can also buy time by the hour for emergencies or simply acquire our services on an ad-hoc basis.
• Why do you charge a monthly fee?
  • Providing effective network support requires that we know your systems inside out. We need to keep detailed records of how everything is configured so that we can respond quickly and safely when you have a problem. We have remote monitoring systems that can warn us in advance of problems before they become critical. And of course we have to provide sufficient resources so that we always have someone available to deal with your call. All of this costs us money, whether or not you have a problem at any given time. We try to keep the monthly fee as low as we can without sacrificing quality or responsiveness.
• Are you expensive then?
  • We – and presumably our existing support customers – don’t think so. There are network support providers that charge less than we do, and those that charge an awful lot more. We are positioned at the very top of the market in terms of quality, and around half way up in terms of cost. We’re certainly a lot cheaper than lost data or a day spent without a working computer system. We have come across systems that were so vulnerable the entire business was hanging by a thread. What price would you put on your business?
• What if I don’t have any budget for network support?
  • It’s simply unrealistic to expect your IT systems to run forever without having any problems, and since they are a crucial business asset it’s equally unrealistic not to have them adequately covered. Think of the monthly charge as being insurance for one of your organisation’s most valuable assets.
• How quickly can you respond to problems?
• Depending on the type of support contract you take out with us, we guarantee emergency response times as quickly as within the hour. Note that these are contractual response times and so represent worst-case scenarios; we normally respond instantly to emergencies.
• How do you respond to problems?
  • We can set up remote links to all of our customers’ sites either using a VPN or via remote control software. This allows us to take control of servers and other critical network components within seconds so as to fix problems immediately. Many issues can be resolved within minutes, but if we cannot resolve a problem remotely we will attend the site as a matter of urgency. We aim to be onsite within 2 hours of identifying a problem that cannot be fixed remotely, but it’s usually a lot quicker than that.
• What’s different about you?
  • No grey areas, no finger-pointing, and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. We see many customers who have been suffering with some sort of problem for months because the hardware supplier says it's a software problem, and the software vendor says it's a hardware problem. We don't operate like that. In most cases our customers don't especially care where the problem lies; they just need it fixed. We operate on a "fix it first; discuss it later" basis!
• What else is different about you?
  • Over the years we have built up an understanding of our customers needs, and what they want from a support provider. The things they want are honest objective advice, reliability, effectiveness, value for money and accountability. These attributes are getting rarer to find in today’s IT support consultancies and that's what makes us different. We still believe in the old principles of looking after customers, and building long term relationships.
• Anything else?
  • We have a very unusual mix of clients, from the very small to the very large. This allows us to tailor the advice and services we provide to each client’s budget, and (just as importantly) to adapt as they grow and as their priorities change. We gain a lot of clients who have grown rapidly and whose existing support providers either couldn’t keep pace with them, or else didn’t have the skills that larger companies need. Our unique client mix also enables us to provide smaller companies with expertise we have gained from larger ones, especially in areas (such as security) which tend to get overlooked by companies below a certain size.