IT Support FAQ
Technical Support and Expertise
1. Is your technical workforce and office-based locally?
IT Support Singapore is a Singapore based company. Our technical personnel are all Singaporeans and our day-to-day technical tasks are not outsourced. While we may need the expert help of our collaborators while working on some projects, you can be sure that their work quality, as well as delivery, is under our constant scanner and we are entirely responsible for them.
2. Do you participate in training on an ongoing basis and maintain vendor certifications?
Since technology undergoes rapid and frequent changes, we make sure that our service consultants go through rigorous external and internal training so that they are always updated. In fact, we are extremely fortunate to have an excellent team. We always consider our workforce to be our most valuable asset. Our people offer the teamwork, expertise, and intelligence, which ascertain our very existence. One of our top priorities is to keep upgrading and challenging their knowledge.
3. Do you know about our unique business line and our business application?
Our clients and customers are from a wide cross-section of fields including professional services, precision engineering, oil & gas, offshore and marine engineering, supply chain and logistics management, legal, financial, environment, engineering, electronics, consumer business, accounting, and chemicals.
As your IT Support Singapore service provider, it is our responsibility to manage as well as own your business applications. In fact, we will also collaborate closely with your software/application vendors to make sure that all the essential areas and details are covered, thus reducing machine downtime for your firm.
4. How do you respond typically when something is not quite right with our workstations, network, servers, printers, phone system, email, or internet access?
We have hired experienced service consultants who are always alert to get the first reports from your co-workers or you. We always own your problems and try to offer solutions for rectification. In case rectifying the problem is not within your scope, we are ready to offer the essential follow-ups and necessary hand-holding activities. As your IT Support Singapore service provider, it is our endeavor to always ensure that your problems are taken care of at the first call itself. We always make it a point to get back to you as soon as possible and always on time.
5. Do I need to sign a contract with you?
An IT Support Singapore service provider has to invest a lot of their staff resources, energy, and time to clean up and bring your network and hardware in sync with the best practices of the industry. So, it is not fair to ask these service providers to visit, perform a mammoth volume of work, which the earlier service provider could not complete without entering into a long-term agreement.
6. Will you come to our office if we have a computer-related problem?
In case the problem being experienced by you cannot be resolved over the phone quickly, we will immediately send one of our service consultants to your workplace to do the necessary repair work.
Data Backups and Disaster Recovery
1. How do you ensure that our data backup process is working properly or not?
It is our responsibility to keep a tab on your data backups on a day-to-day basis. We always make it a point to insist on it. In fact, data is extremely critical for several businesses and so we desire to have a hassle-free time after knowing that your data backups have been executed successfully. Our expert service consultants have been briefed in a manner that they always try to give top priority for checking of data backup tasks and data backup. Ideally, this is the first task our consultants start their day with for your business. We also recommend our clients to set up facilities for deploying off-site as well as on-site remote backups. We will always do our best to make sure that all your backup jobs are carried out successfully and properly.
2. Do you take backup of our IT asset configurations?
Of course, we also undertake such tasks particularly those with custom and critical configuration settings. We will always value your machine up-time and can undertake all possible measures, which can be helpful to help in your data recovery process or prevent machine downtime.
3. Will you conduct test restores from time to time for our backups?
You will agree that your data backups can be only considered as successful if they can be restored properly. At the same time, we know and appreciate that certain client data can be highly sensitive in nature. Accordingly, we will only go for your data restoration when you request us to do so. We are aware of the importance of your data backup process and make sure that all your data backup tasks are being implemented successfully. We will undertake all the necessary tasks to ensure that there is a high likelihood of an effective and successful recovery of your backup data.
Customer Service
1. What are your charges for IT Support Singapore service?
On many occasions, the cost of our service is dependent on the kind of service we are providing. Although there are some service providers who could be charging fewer fees, usually, the details become the deciding factor for our fees or charges. In fact, we strongly believe that a service provider should not be single-handedly assessed solely on the price factor.
We believe that ours is a combined journey together. Also, we have to make sure that we have a proper understanding, communication, and both of us complement one another. You should not consider price and cost as the only deciding factor. You can drop us an email, freeze a date for a meeting and then take it forward from there to determine whether we can assist you in any way or not.
2. What are your working hours?
Although we are functional from 9 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on all weekdays, we do not hesitate to give time to our clients even after our office hours when there is an emergency. Our clients enjoy direct access to our service consultants who have been allocated to their account. And that is not all. We are also monitoring all your IT assets round the clock for 7 days in a week. We are ready to support you even during an off hour for rectifying the critical faults if any.
3. How quickly can you respond to my hardware/software problem? Is your SLA assured?
We mention an SLA or Service Level Agreement when we sign the contract with you. The SLA for critical faults is more stringent as compared to that of non-critical faults. In actual practice though, a huge volume of all the service calls are attended within the shortest possible time.
4. Do you use non-technical jargons while taking out your time to respond to our various queries?
Yes, that is because we appreciate a requirement to explain even sophisticated technology in easy to understand terminologies. A vast majority of our clients are not technology experts but entrepreneurs. Hence, all our service specialists are specifically careful while communicating with our clients. They have been particularly trained to use simple to understand non-technical jargons and terminologies while communicating with all their clients. We realize the importance of making our point but in a language that can be easily understood by you. You can always be rest assured that we do not use technical terminologies while interacting with our clients.
5. Will you offer means of improving the performance of my network? Do you offer technology recommendations and guidance?
It is a key part of our agreement with our clients all the time. We try to meet our clients at specific time interval so that there can be a systematic technology guidance and review. The objectives of these meetings are to explore new ways of improving your operations and technology assets. It is our aim to make sure that our clients enjoy maximizing returns, future-proof their technology investments with minimum hardware and network downtime.
6. Will you provide us detailed invoices with break-ups, which explain what expenses I will be paying for?
Almost all our services are charged on the basis of a flat-free monthly rate. The fee that you will pay us will be mentioned in our agreement. Plus, any charges or work outside this flat-fee will be pre-approved and quoted. You can be completely assured that all the invoices we will send you will certainly have your prior approval.
7. Is there any guarantee from your side that you will always complete our projects within the decided budget?
Any project, which we undertake will be always on a fixed price. It will include all fees and professional work. In fact, we will not take up any project based on material and time that may lead to ambiguity or vagueness.
Maintenance and Management of Networks, Servers, and Workstations
1. Why should you go for remote monitoring of our workstations, networks, and servers?
We have scientifically developed monitoring mechanisms, which enable us to keep a close tab on your IT assets in order to always watch out for security issues, developing problems, and missing updates and patches. Our key aim is to address these technical issues as soon as possible so that they do not become severe hiccups leading to your network or machine downtime.
2. Will there be any accompanying reports from your side to demonstrate that you have done some work on our machines?
We ensure that all our clients/customers receive an in-depth report, which demonstrates the health status of their IT/technology assets. Such a report is extremely crucial for us because we see these reports as a tool for giving an assurance. They are a means of communicating to our clients the kind of work we have done to prevent their network/machine downtime even though our service specialists are not on the site.
3. Are you following the practice of documenting our IT/technology assets?
We offer all or clients a copy of any documentation created by us. The documentation typically has a detail of all the user information, configuration settings, user information, and all the technology assets. We will update all the changes that were made during the technical guidance and review meet-up in this documentation. As a security and privacy measure, we suggest that only certain key employees should be given access to this. That is because the documentation offers inside details of your organization.
It is to be noted that you need to always maintain a documented copy of your organization’s critical technical information. In case your current technology service provider is yet to offer you one, you should request for one, at the earliest opportunity. We believe that professional IT Support Singapore service providers need not retain crucial information about their clients.
4. Any particular fine print we should specifically know about?
You will be happy to know that we always provide a budgeted expense to all our clients/customers. Our contract has a mention of one flat fee, which is inclusive with on-site, remote, email, and telephone support. It will please you that we appreciate your concerns highly because we have come across various instances of variations as far as the services offered by our competitors are concerned. While these services may appear to be offered at lower prices, you will find a vast difference in the kind of services being offered by them. In case you want to compare such service offering, the following list can be considered:
- Will there be unlimited on-site support
- Would there be a provision of on-site, remote, email, and telephone support?
- Are the technology assets being monitored round the clock?
- Would both software and hardware technology assets be managed by IT Support Singapore service provider?
- Would you charge for removing, adding, moving, or upgrading users? If yes, what will be the charges like?
- Would you charge extra for any recovery work done by your specialists if there is a major disaster?
- What will be the consequences in case the contract is terminated earlier than usual?
- Would you do a regular meet-up for technical guidance and review?