IT Support Plan: Why Every Small Business Should Have One

Ever since I opened my IT company I’ve always offered an IT Support Plan to my small business clients. While many customers have taken advantage of support plans there are still those business owners that decide against them. When I ask these business owners why they’ve opted out of an IT support plan they almost always respond by saying that they don’t have that many issues and can’t justify the monthly expense. In this post I’m going to show why the monthly expense isn’t only justifiable but the smart move.

Security

In all of our support plans we provide our client’s with patch management and managed anti-virus.

When I refer to patch management I’m talking about Window’s Updates. Hackers are constantly finding and exploiting vulnerabilities with the Windows operating system. To combat this Microsoft releases updates. Something I always like to show clients is the list of Windows updates that have been installed on their machine. The majority of them are security updates. If your computer isn’t fully updated it can leave your system vulnerable which can lead to an increased risk of contracting a computer virus or leaking data.

Anti-Virus software is another crucial component of security. While it’s very possible to grab anti-virus protection off the shelf, install and monitor it yourself we typically find that this rarely happens. People get busy and they forget to install the updates or reboot their computers in order to complete the update process. We also often find expired anti-virus protection installed on computers. When you neglect to make sure your anti-virus subscription is valid, the program is updated and working correctly you are leaving yourself completely vulnerable to viruses.

I don’t feel like I need to explain how much damage and frustration a computer virus can cause. A nasty virus can not only cost you productivity but they can also encrypt your data and hold it for ransom.

Ask yourself how much money it would cost you if one of your systems went down and needed to be wiped completely clean in order to remove the virus. Also, how valuable is your data?

Emergency Response Time

3.) The Value of Data

4.) Efficiency and Productivity

5.) Predictable Expenses

6.) Less Expensive Repairs