IT Support Companies Now Offer Traditional Pay By The Hour and Fixed Monthly IT Support Packages

Today your business has a clear choice between traditional Pay-As-You-Go and monthly All-Inclusive Business IT support contracts.

The Business IT support industry calls the Pay-As-You-Go type of arrangement Break-Fix. By this they mean you call when your computer breaks and you call a Business IT Support company and they will fix it for you.

And the industry calls the All-Inclusive monthly service Managed Services. With this type of contract you pay a fixed monthly fee for a contracted range of Business IT Support services. The main difference is that a Managed Services focuses on preventing IT problems. This preventative Business IT Support approach minimises the number of problems that need fixed.

Which Business IT Support approach is best? There is no one answer that applies to all companies – it all depends. The following 8 questions comparing the 2 types of Business IT Support services may help you choose between the 2 Business IT Support approaches.

Top 4 reasons to Use Break-Fix Business IT Support

1. Your IT is stable– There are companies whose business and computers don’t change that often. As a result they rarely have IT Support problems. In this case you are very lucky (!) and paying for a Managed Service may be unnecessary as you won’t call your Business IT Support Company too often.


2. No unnecessary extras – with Break-Fix nothing extra is bundled with the service. You may not need some of the items bundled in with a Managed Service. If so you’ll be paying for Business IT Support Services that you don’t need.


3. No contract– Break-Fix gives you the maximum flexibility. You can go to any company for Business IT Support at any time.


4. Try before you commit – with Break-Fix there is no contractual commitment for your Business IT Support. You can try a service without committing to any more than a few hours work. Of course that works the other way around as well – your Business IT Support Company has no commitment to you either. When you are happy you’ve found the right Business IT Support Company it may be worth committing for a better service package.

Top 4 reasons to have a Managed Service Business IT Support Contract

1. Budget for IT support– if your IT support bill varies substantially from month to month, a Managed Service Business IT Support package will help even things out and make budgeting much easier. It will just be like paying a monthly direct debit for rent or insurance. Make sure the Business IT Support plan you sign up for is all-inclusive with no hidden charges, caveats, or fees.


2. Fix the problems– with a Managed Service your Business IT Support Company has a massive incentive to fix the real underlying problem to stop it recurring again. They are not able to charge you more for fixing it again and again. However a Break-Fix Business IT Support Company is happy to keep coming back to fix the symptoms time and time again. After all you are paying them by the hour.


3. Faster response – when you do have a problem a Managed Service provider is likely to be more familiar with you network. As a result your Business IT Support Company will be able to fix most IT Support problems faster.


4. Less management required – IT issues can require a huge amount of your management time. IT isn’t an easy area to manage particularly if the manager doesn’t really understand computers. The average manager doesn’t understand IT (why should they – they have a business to run) and can therefore waste a lot of unnecessary time on it.

The theory is that Managed Services from a Business IT support company will:

1. Reduce your overall IT costs by preventing many problems happening in the first place


2. Fix problems that do occur more rapidly because your Business IT support company thoroughly understands your computer system and your business.

That’s why more and more businesses are moving to a monthly fixed price IT Support Contract.