Information technology is becoming an indispensable part of every business and organization where the whole working of every organization is increasingly getting inclined towards the online networks and servers. IT solutions and applications are essential to improve productivity and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of business operations.
Also, IT technology keeps on changing and upgrading day by day, and the need to keep up with them is essential to gain competitive advantage and stay in the market. Thus the need for professional technical support and managed IT Support arises. But the main question that arises now is what is technical support and what is Managed IT Support.
Technical Support
The technical support refers to the services provided by the companies in accordance with a particular product or a service. The guidance provided by the experts about a specific product or technology is known as technical support.
The solutions to particular issues and problems rather than the training and learning about the product or technology is included in the technical support. It refers to the range of services provided by the companies concerning a particular software, application, or any other hardware.
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The various types of technical support are as follows:-
- Time and Material:- This Support is generally given to an individual customer where the burden of the technician service charge, along with the materials, falls on the customer. This is also known as the “break-fix” model of technical support.
- Managed Services:- Managed Services are generally experienced by large scale customers. This includes a long list of predefined services that are provided according to the contract. This also contains 24×7 monitoring of the networks, servers, and the help desk.
- Block Hours:- In this type of technical support, the customer pays for a specific amount of time to the support provider and can use those hours according to the needs of the businesses.
ADVANTAGES OF TECHNICAL SUPPORT
- When an organization hires proper technical support, it helps the organization in its working. The effective and efficient functioning of the technical support helps in increasing communication, along with fixing, optimizing, and repairing computer hardware and the systems.
- Technical Support helps in troubleshooting the existing problems along with predicting future problems and making a structured plan.
- The professional and experienced tech support specialists help in keeping the operations of the companies up-to-date with the newest software and programs available.
- With IT becoming more and more complex with every passing day, the need to hire professionals with specialized knowledge keeps on rising. Thus, outsourcing becomes necessary.
TIERS OF TECHNICAL SUPPORT
The whole process of technical support is divided into various levels. The level of technical support that a company would use depends upon the needs of the business and the ability to serve the customers.
The various tiers of technical support are:-
- TIER 0– Tier 0 is the form of self-help where the customers can get their queries answered in the way of wikis or FAQs. Direct communication with customer care and support is not required at this level.
- TIER 1– This level of support is the basic level that is required by the customers or the organizations. This level helps in resolving fundamental customer issues. The first job of TIER 1 Technical support specialist is to gather the information and analyze the symptoms and underlying problems. After this, the process of resolving the problem starts. This troubleshooting includes verifying physical layer issues, uninstalling/reinstalling basic software applications along with other solutions. On this Tier, the primary questions are solved rather than the highly complex problems.
- TIER 2– Tier 2 level of technical support is much more complicated. This level of support costs more as compared to Tier 1 as the professionals and technicians are much more experienced. This level provides support to the problems of administrative level, which includes advanced troubleshooting and analysis methods.
- TIER 3– This is the highest level of technical support, which resolves the most complex issues regarding a particular product or service. This is mostly the back-end support where the professionals are responsible for the working of Tier 1 and Tier 2 along with the researches and developments.
Thus, every organization, whether it is of the IT industry or any other industry, has various software and applications on which they work. And undoubtedly, there are so many problems that might arise when working. Thus, technical support becomes important.
MANAGED IT SUPPORT
Managed IT support is that process where an organization outsources the entire operations of the IT department to a managed Service Provider. These services are outsourced to reduce the burden, and the businesses can focus on the core processes.
When the company opts for managed IT Support, the entire responsibility of the operations and the results get onto the shoulders of MSPs. But an effective and efficient working of managed IT Support leads to cost reduction along with better results.
The various activities involved in Managed IT Support are:-
- Monitoring and management of servers
- Cybersecurity
- Cloud Managed Services
- Network monitoring and security
- Virtualization
Also, along with the assistance in these services, there are various models of Managed IT Support from which an organization can choose from. The different models are as follows:-
- Co-Managed Managed IT Support- This type of model includes hiring some IT Specialists inside the firm as well as outsourcing some of the activities and getting the insight of the experts. Some of the events are performed by the already existing personnel in the company and then getting the opinions of the experts.
- In-House IT Support- This type of Managed IT Support model includes hiring the whole IT department in the company itself. Every operation related to the IT department is carried out within the company. The decision-making powers lie with the executives, and nobody outside the company has any say.
- Fully Managed IT Support- In this type of business model, the activities of the entire IT of an organization are outsourced to a managed service provider. The planning, executing, and follow-up of every IT operation is done by the MSP itself, and the burden to handle the IT operations is on the service provider so that the company can focus on the core business applications.
Thus, Managed IT Support is one of the best ways one can take advantage of the specialized knowledge and experience of the experts. Although the technical Support and Managed IT Support are very different from each other. Still, both have some of the same advantages and helps in the same manner in every organization.
The technical support is for those organizations and businesses which require a short term engagement for a specific product or a service. In contrast, the Managed IT Support is for those businesses that want to outsource the IT operations to a managed service provider.
