When you are looking for business IT support, you can find various types of contracts and agreements. You can choose from a break/fix plan, pay in advance for blocks of hours, or select a flat fee IT support contract which includes the majority, if not all, the things your business will need monthly.
Here are a few types of IT support plans:
Break/Fix
This is where you pay a company an hourly rate to fix issues after they occur. This may seem inexpensive but as one system breaks, it often breaks others and your cost to fix will run up. You may end up with some months going way over budget.
Pay in Advance
This means buying blocks of time in advance. This may sound advantageous as you have “reserved” time with the support company. However, this can get pricey. If you haven’t used all your support time, you still must pay for it.
Flat Fee Support Plan
The flat fee IT support model is where you pay a fixed monthly fee based on your number of users. With this you receive proactive support for all your software, hardware and users for a flat fee that does not increase. This is a great choice for budget conscious businesses who need stability in expenses.
5 Benefits of a Flat Fee IT Support Plan
A flat fee IT support plan can save money
Paying for IT support on a break/fix model is like owning an old car. You never know what the next repair bill will be. You must keep extra money in the bank because you don’t know what will be needed at the end of the month. Flat fee IT support is like being on a preventative maintenance plan. Most issues are foreseen and avoided, saving you a lot in repairs.
Your IT company must be pro-active
A fixed fee IT support plan causes your support company to work pro-actively to avoid any issues. Because they cannot charge you any more than the agreed upon rate, they must work diligently to ensure your systems are always in top shape. If an MSP must spend more hours than they planned on your network, they can lose money. To prevent this, they use pro-active monitoring and maintenance to keep your network in top form.
You should have less downtime
Because of pro-active monitoring and maintenance, you’ll have less downtime. Hardware, server errors, and performance are all monitored. This enables an MSP to catch small issues before they become big ones. This keeps you online, productive and making money.
You only have a single invoice to deal with
If you are a small or medium sized business with many vendors, accounts payable can take up a lot of time. With a fixed-fee plan you will not have to review every line item for every department to make sure the work was done. You just pay one bill and that is it. And if you would like, you can have an itemized invoice sent to see all the work that goes into your account.
95% of issues are dealt with remotely
One thing that companies learned during the recent pandemic is that not everyone needs to be on premises to be productive. IT is a great example of this. With most businesses in the cloud, there are only a few instances where a tech would need to be at your place of business. 95% of your business can be serviced remotely, how does this benefit you?
- No need to make an appointment to solve an issues
- Provides a safer environment for those who do work in your office
- No need to take time out of your day
- No need to stop working while an IT technician completes tasks
Summary
If you are in the market for an IT managed service provider, selecting the plan that works best for you is vital. Responza offers all types of plans but as you can read above, we favor a flat fee model for most of our customers. We feel it benefits both parties and creates a true IT partnership between us and our customers. And as we learn more about your business, it just gets better and better.
Contact Responza today to set up a
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