Whether you’re a retailer with a massive list of stores to keep updated or a school board that needs to make sure the network is secure, IT help can be the difference between a secure network that churns profits and a lost day of sales. Though you may not spend your time thinking about hiring an IT team, you’ll certainly wished you had when things go wrong.
Make Sure They Understand Your Business
There are a lot of people that can restart a computer when it crashes or migrate an email inbox when needed. There aren’t so many people that can secure your network and copy image disks for new employees. Your job is to further scale down that list of people to individuals that understand your business. Sounds simple, right? Not exactly.
A good IT team will make sure that they understand how your technical systems integrate (and sustain) your day to day operations. If they struggle to understand your core offering, they are going to struggle to support your business’s technical systems in a way that services your employees and customers alike.
Make Sure They’re Skilled Enough for Multi-Channel Support
IT support isn’t what it used to be. Your IT help needs to be able to do a lot more than answer the phone 9AM- 5PM. You want to make sure they can assist your customers through email, live chat, and in some cases- social media. Consumers are less likely to reach out to support via phone and in fact, prefer live chat for troubleshooting their issues. Make sure that the team you spend your money on can do so.
More importantly, make sure that you have a good measure of their technical skills. In some cases, this may be as simple as testing their knowledge on the software and hardware at hand. In the case that you don’t have a great understanding of your technical systems, you may want to create a list of questions and common problems you and your team experience to ask the information technology team.
Test Their People Skills
You may have the most certified Microsoft 365 team in your area but if their people skills are terrible- that means next to nothing. Though you may find it relatively easy to judge a person’s people skills, you’ll want to take your time.
- Make sure that they work well with clients. Ask a few questions about how they handle difficult customers. Ask them to tell you how they solved their last major problems. You want to make sure that they will talk to your clients the same way they would talk to their mother.
- Make sure they work well with your in-house team. Right next to clients is your employees. Take the time to introduce key members of your team. As IT and operations will be working hand-in-hand, it’s important to discover the right match for your team as well.
- Make sure they work well together. Yet another element to test is their ability to work together. If the best man on the team calls out sick, can every issue your business may experience be solved? Make sure to ask them the systems they have in place for support coverage, as well as whether or not IT is provided in sections. For example, some teams have a base support and for certain issues- need to reach up to the more experienced team to resolve it.
Looking into these 3 elements will help you get an accurate image of what it’s like to work with them.
Final Thoughts: IT is an Extension of Your Business, Treat Hiring that Way
Your IT team can easily become the biggest asset your business has for standing out from the competition. Nowadays, customer service is one of the #1 reason customers make the choice to work with or buy from a business.
Technical expertise makes that difference. In fact, you’d be surprised how many people work in the digital world but can’t fix their technology when it breaks or bugs out. That being said, treat this hiring process the same way you would treat hiring at your business. Take your time. Get a resume. Ask questions!
What advice do you have for hiring an IT team? Leave your experience in the comments.
