Is your company looking to hire an IT firm? Unfortunately, unless you’re tech-savvy or experienced with IT contracts, there can be hidden costs you wouldn’t expect or know to look for. While it can sound appealing to go for the cheapest firm, that decision can end up costing you more in the long run due to carve-outs and hidden fees in the contract. Cheaper IT firms will omit certain services from the agreement and later nickel-and-dime you to add them or quote you inadequate solutions that you’ll later need to pay to upgrade.

To help you weed out these IT companies that are not the bargains they advertise themselves to be, there are a few key elements to consider when determining if your quote is insufficient, overpriced, underquoted or the right solution.

Insufficient Compliance And Cybersecurity Protections:

A ransomware attack can have severe and damaging consequences for any business. Hence, the IT company mustn’t merely propose a basic, inexpensive antivirus software for your business and consider it adequate. Beware of those proposals from IT companies that opt for the cheapest solutions as they could leave critical areas of your business vulnerable to cyber threats.

While antivirus software is crucial, it alone falls dramatically short in offering comprehensive protection against severe cybersecurity threats. In fact, insurance companies are now requiring advanced cyber protections such as employee cyber awareness training, 2FA (2-factor authentication), and what’s called “advanced endpoint protection” just to get insurance coverage for cyber liability and crime insurance. 10D Tech provides those standards in our offering, so you significantly reduce your chances of a cyber-attack and avoid being denied a critical insurance claim (or denied coverage, period).

Inadequate Recovery Solutions:

One thing you also want to make sure you look for in your IT firm proposal is that they complete incremental daily backups of your servers and workstations, as well as any cloud applications your company uses (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, etc.) because online applications do NOT guarantee to back up your data. You also need to ensure your backups are immutable or cannot be corrupted by hackers. Again, most insurance companies now require immutable backups to be in place before they insure against ransomware or similar cyber events.

Transparency About Remote Support, On-Site And After-Hours Fees:

It may take you by surprise, but most IT firms will charge EXTRA for IT support for the staff workstation per event. We outline ALL of this in our agreements, but ‘cheaper’ MSPs will intentionally leave this out and add it on later to make the sticker price appear lower. Make sure you understand what is and isn’t included in your service agreement before signing.

Nonexistent Vendor Liaison And Support:

Will they help you with your tech, or just select pieces they’ve installed? Some IT firms will charge you hourly to resolve tech support issues with your phone system, ISP, security cameras, printers and other devices they didn’t sell you but that still reside on the network (and give you technical problems). These fees can stack up over time. As a 10D Tech client, we outline in our Scope of Work agreement what we will be able to cover and what an additional fee will be should our standard support not correct an issue.

Cheap, Inexperienced Techs And No Dedicated Account Managers:

Some companies cut costs by skimping on customer support and expertise. Many smaller MSPs will hire technicians under a 1099 agreement or find cheaper, less experienced engineers to work on your network and systems. The more experienced and knowledgeable a tech is on networking and, more specifically, cybersecurity, the more expensive they are.

Good account management includes creating and managing an IT budget, a custom road map for your business and reviewing regulatory compliance and security routinely to ensure nothing is overlooked. You get what you pay for, and this is NOT an area you want overlooked.

BEFORE you sign on the dotted line, it’s important to ensure that you fully understand what IS and ISN’T included in the service you are signing up for. It’s VERY easy for one IT services provider to appear far less expensive than another UNTIL you look closely at what you are getting.

If you’d like to see what dependable, quality IT support looks like, book a call with our team, and we’ll be happy to give you a proposal that covers everything you need. To Schedule Your FREE Assessment, please visit https://www.10dtech.com/security or call our office at 541-243-4103.