Tag: IT guy

  • Looking for a new IT provider? Here’s a checklist to start with

    Looking for a new IT provider? Here’s a checklist to start with

    As an IT provider ourselves we have some thoughts – okay a lot of thoughts – on what makes a good one.

    It’s an unfortunate fact that many of our clients came to us after being failed, sometimes catastrophically, by their previous provider. While we service a large portion of the Central California area, we know many readers fall outside this region and we thought it would be helpful to provide a printable and online capable checklist for the top 9 things to look for in an IT provider.

    The items found on this checklist are simple enough you could even have it handy while you interview new provider options. If the answers to any of these questions are a “no” or even hesitancy, we suggest you continue looking. Items like security, disaster recovery and responsiveness to requests are hard stops when it comes to choosing a provider that will best support your business.

    If your old IT service provider left you in the lurch during a disaster, why would you risk choosing a new provider that can’t guarantee that the same thing won’t happen again?

    You also want to make sure they believe in proactive maintenance. When choosing a new provider and paying for their services the last thing you want to have happen is that you’re still the person responsible for maintaining your own IT. Paying their bill every month while still slogging through updates on workstations yourself would just be salt in the wound. We think this should be an included part of any full coverage service plan.

    Speaking of full coverage plans, at Valley Techlogic we believe in unified billing. This means when you choose us all of your IT services are contained under our one billing umbrella. We manage their IT subscriptions, their VoIP plans – everything is designed to be as hassle free as possible. While not all providers operate the same as we do in this regard, we (and our clients) think of it as a positive feature.

    Migrating from your previous provider can also be an intimidating time for any business owner, this person or business had access to all of your sensitive systems and if things ended on a sour note, you may be feeling unsure whether your data and systems are safe.

    We wrote a comprehensive guide on what to do when your IT guy (or IT provider) suddenly quits, you can find it here. The topics are applicable whether they quit or were fired by you. It’s our suggestion you don’t try to manage this on your own, locking down access and recovering credentials is really best left to the professionals.

    If your business is located in Central California (Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Merced and everywhere in between) and you’re looking for a new IT service provider, Valley Techlogic meets all of the criteria found in the above checklist and more. Reach out today to learn more.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

  • Your IT Guy Quit, Now What?

    Your IT Guy Quit, Now What?

    Your relationship with your IT person can be a somewhat fragile dichotomy, sure you’re friendly with them and they’re probably a great person (you chose/hired them after all).

    But for many small business owners they couldn’t really tell you what this person does beyond making the computers “work”. You hired them for their skills and those skills should exist outside the realm of what you could manage for your own IT (though many owners try).

    So, if they quit, you’re suddenly in the lurch. You have all these systems that were being maintained by one individual that are now in limbo as you try to figure out what to do next, perhaps even trying to entice them to come back.

    For any new person you bring on, the relics of your old IT person may haunt them for them for the entirety of their tenure with you. When you’re just one person trying to manage many systems and users, documenting as you go can feel like a lost cause – especially during the busy times.

    That’s also supposing the split was amicable. If it was not, the damage can be difficult to recover from. We always recommend business owners maintain access to their own systems and never let themselves be completely cut off from the admin side of things no matter how capable your IT person is. Recovering those accounts can be difficult to impossible depending on the system in question.

    That leads us to our list of the top 4 things you should do as soon as your IT person quits.

    First 4 things to do when your IT person quits

    As we say in our infographic, leaving the entirety of your technology support to one person can be a dicey proposition. That’s where our co-managed solution comes in.

    In a co-managed scenario, you keep your IT guy, and we work with him to offload some of the tasks that may be bogging him down day to day. We also will bring our tools that we have honed and perfected across nearly two decades in the business to improve your processes.

    This includes better documentation, better reporting, and just overall better transparency so you as a business owner can have a bird’s eye view into this process that is so important to the continued success of your business.

    The added bonus to lightening their load is that they can then focus on activities that will move your business forward, such as projects that had been on hold because there just wasn’t time or activities that can actually grow your business.

    For example, they can address aging hardware issues that there just hasn’t been time for in the past that are holding your business back and representing a cybersecurity threat. We can even help with sourcing. Technology is a necessary component in the success of any business no matter what category or size – if yours is stuck in the past it’s going to curtail your efforts to grow your business.

    If your IT person just quit and you’re thinking you would rather have a competent IT team managing your technology, we have a plan for that as well. Our managed IT department plan is all encompassing and includes all of the support you will need, 24/7. You can learn more by taking a quick consultation with us here.


    Looking for more to read? We suggest these tech articles from the last week.

    This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.