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Technology Support For Your Small Business

Written by Leke

Topics: Business Computers

Maintenance of Your Business Computers and Technology Investment

Investing in computers for your business can be expensive, even though it is necessary. It is therefore important that after investing a fortune in equipping your Small Business, you should put in place an efficient technology support  for your small business to cater for the maintenance of your investment. Just like the wise says that “He who fails to plan has planned to fail” if you fail to put in place (before you actually need it) an efficient and effective technology support to cater for the upkeep and maintenance of your computers and peripherals, you will incur very expensive cost when there arises an equipment breakdown. Even the best of equipments do breakdown or malfunction. Here are some tips to help you make the right decision.

Buy Your Computers and Peripherals From Reliable Sources

When purchasing your business computers and peripherals, it is good practice to buy from well established computer shops that provides after sales support and services. The cost of acquiring computers, as well as software and possibly putting in place a simple peer-to-peer networking is already a major expenditure for a small scale entrepreneur.  So you can’t afford to purchase equipments that have manufacturing defects which you will only discover months later. If the shop charges a token for providing warranty, do well to pay the extra so as to protect yourself from unnecessary cost of replacement few months after acquiring the equipment.

Expensive Business Equipment deserves Effective Support Service

It is common to see small scale business owners shying away from entering into a service contract after they purchase their business equipments. Their excuse being that they have already spent too much in acquiring business computers and peripherals.

My simple advice is that if you cannot afford to have a computer technician on your payroll, then it is advisable to enter into an agreement with a reliable one that you can call upon whenever the need arise. Scouting round for a computer technician when your equipment is already malfunctioning is not the best. You will spend more and may even fall victim to quack technicians that abounds everywhere.

It is quite more cost effective to have entered into a technology support agreement with a technician or repair shop for routine maintenance of your business computers and accessories.

What to Look Out For In The Technology Support Agreement

When entering into the technology support agreement ensure you find out what the technician will be charging for his time and what percentage he intends putting on as markup on parts for replacement. You are better off if all this are negotiated upfront before you need the technician service.

As your business grows, you may need to review the agreement or even change your technology support service strategy. If your business can afford a technician on the payroll, it is better as he will be monitoring the business technology investment on day to day basis instead of periodically. However, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing the support service until you can afford to employ a technician. The important issue is that you have an effective technology support service arrangement in place before you need one. You can get free future updates to this post Technology Support For Your Small Business by subscribing to our RSS feed. Cheers.

3 Comments Comments For This Post I'd Love to Hear Yours!

  1. Getting ONLY warrantied products is the best way to go in my opinion. I feel it’s far less costly than getting a technician on your payroll. Unfortunately the guarantee thing in Nigeria is just starting and some businesses are taking undue advantage of customers.

    Take for example, the Nokia Care folks @ Ikeja Lagos. My sister’s phone has been giving serious problems ever since 4 months after she acquired it. It has been to Nokia care 5 times for the same fault. On my penultimate visit, I was told the phone was going to be replaced with a new one and that I should return the next week to pick it up.

    Next week came and I was given the exact same phone back with claims that it had been fixed. 1 week later, the fault resumed duties again and on my final trip to Ikeja, the lady who attended to me revealed to me that the idiots in charge (I think they are Lebanese), didn’t like replacing phones that had gone past 3 months of use before faults arise and that since the guarantee was expiring in 3 weeks time, they would probably find some excuse to delay till the phone went out of warranty 🙁

    Mumsy is so frustrated right now cos it was her money that paid for the phone and she’s planning on going to make trouble

    soon.
    .-= Udegbunam Chukwudi´s last blog ..StrictlyOnlineBiz’s Top Blog Posts Of The Week 6 =-.

  2. steve says:

    You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your concept.

  3. IT Solutions says:

    Most of the products come with Guarantee. But the main reason behind looking for any Technology support is that if any of the application crashed it can lead to many catastrophic results. So it is good to have alternatives.
    .-= IT Solutions´s last blog ..Sage 200 2010 =-.

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