Do you offer after-hours support, and if so, what is the guaranteed response time?

Any good I.T. company will answer their phones LIVE (not voice mail or phone trees) and respond from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday. But many CEOs and executives work outside normal “9 to 5” hours and need I.T. support both nights and weekends. Fairoaks IT offers after-hours support for problems marked “emergency,” such as a network being down or a critical problem that is significantly impacting your ability to work. We can also tailor after hours help-desk solutions to fit your needs.

Do you offer true managed I.T. services and support?

You want to find an I.T. company that will proactively monitor for problems and perform routine maintenance on your I.T. systems. If they don’t have the ability to do this, or they don’t offer it, we strongly recommend you look somewhere else. Our remote network monitoring system watches over your network to constantly look for developing problems, security issues and other problems so we can address them BEFORE they turn into bigger problems.

How many engineers do you have on staff?

Be careful about hiring small, one-person I.T. firms that only have one or two techs or that outsource this critical role. Everyone gets sick, has emergencies, goes on vacation or takes a few days off from time to time. We have more than enough full-time techs on staff to cover in case one is unable to work.

ALSO: Ask how they will document fixes, changes, credentials for you organization so if one tech is out or unavailable, another can step in and know your network settings, history, previous issues, etc., and how those issues were resolved. This is important or you’ll be constantly frustrated with techs who are starting over to resolve a known issue or may screw up something because they don’t understand or have a blueprint of your computer network.

Do you offer documentation of our network as part of the plan, and how does that work?

Network documentation is exactly what it sounds like: the practice of maintaining detailed technical records about the assets you own (computers, devices, software, directory structure, user profiles, passwords, etc.) and how your network is set up, backed up and secured. Every I.T. company should provide this to you in both written (paper) and electronic form at no additional cost and update it on a quarterly basis.

Why is this important? There are several reasons:

First, it shows professionalism and integrity in protecting YOU. No I.T. person or company should be the only holder of the keys to the kingdom. Because we document your network assets and passwords, you have a blueprint you can give to another I.T. person or company to take over if necessary. Second, good documentation allows the engineers working on your account to resolve problems faster because they don’t waste time fumbling their way around your network trying to find things and uncover accounts, hardware, software licenses, etc.

Third, if you had to restore your network after a disaster, you’d have the blueprint to quickly put things back in place as they were. All our clients receive this in written and electronic form at no additional cost. We also perform a quarterly update on this material and make sure certain key people from your organization have this information and know how to use it, giving you complete control over your network. Side note: You should NEVER allow an I.T. person to have that much control over you and your company. If you get the sneaking suspicion that your current I.T. person is keeping this under their control as a means of job security, get rid of them (and we can help to make sure you don’t suffer ANY ill effects). This is downright unethical and dangerous to your organization, so don’t tolerate it!

Who audits YOUR company’s cyber security protocols and when was the last time they conducted an audit?

Nobody should proofread their own work, and every professional I.T. consulting firm will have an independent third party reviewing and evaluating their company for airtight cyber security practices.

There are many companies that offer this service, so who they use can vary (there’s a number of good ones out there.) If they don’t have a professional cyber security auditing firm doing this for them on at least a quarterly basis, or if they tell you they get their peers to audit them, DO NOT hire them. That shows they are not taking cyber security seriously.

You can be confident in the effectiveness of our cyber security because we are audited by third parties, and we have just recently been audited in June of 2022.