What a Technology Support Specialist Can Do for Your Business
Any business can benefit from IT support. Here are 10 things a technology support specialist can do to improve your business.
The modern age is a digital one. There’s no denying the plain and simple fact that the world runs on technology.
Nowhere is this truer than when one turns to the business world. Simply put, the business world relies extremely heavily on technology for pretty much each one of the most functions of a business.
That’s why the demand for technology support specialist positions has skyrocketed in recent years.
If your company hasn’t yet hopped on the trend to have an IT support specialist in-house, then you’re missing out.
In this article, we’ll go over ten crucial benefits that an IT support specialist will provide to your home.
Constant Helpdesk Support
The first way that an IT support specialist can help your business is with constant helpdesk support.
This is a double-edged sword, as the support specialist can service not only your own employees but also customers who may need help with their product.
Having someone in-house to take care of incoming support requests is very different than if you have an outsourced support system or something else altogether.
Dedicated personnel means that service requests are answered and fulfilled quicker, leaving your employees more productive and your customers happier.
Cut Outsourcing Costs
If you’ve been outsourcing your IT support, then you know how much of an expense that is for your business.
By bringing the IT support in-house, you cut out that outsourced cost.
Remember that an in-house employee will typically always be more productive than outsourced employees because they are more invested in the business and the lines of communication are more open and direct.
Thus, you’ll easily recoup the money that you invest in paying and training your support specialist.
Monitor Your Network
If your business relies on its internal network to service employees, then you know how disastrous any interruption to that network can be to your overall productivity.
Each hour that the network is down can cost you upwards of tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity.
A technology support specialist will be able to monitor your network for health issues and risks, ensuring that downtime is minimized.
If your business relies on an external network to service customers, then it becomes all the more important to have in-house network monitoring.
Otherwise, you could very easily lose customers should your network ever go down.
Shore Up Cybersecurity
As the world transitions to a digital focus, one unfortunate consequence is the sudden proliferation of cybercrime.
Whether it’s your competitors trying to do some corporate espionage, or a would-be financial hacker trying to redirect business funds to personal accounts, any successful cyber attack can be devastating to your business.
The right IT business support specialist will have cybersecurity training and will be able to recommend and implement measures to protect your company’s network from nefarious individuals.
Business Analytics and Data
Analytics is absolutely key to the success of your business’s strategy. If you want to grow your company, then you need access to data so that you can tell whether or not the strategies that you are putting in place are working.
These analytics are best collected by a technology specialist who knows how to use available software tools to report on the metrics that concern you the most.
Harness Machine Learning
Another unique benefit that some IT support specialists can provide is an understanding of machine learning or artificial intelligence.
AI has come a long way in recent years and is now very relevant to many different business applications.
AI can analyze a business system and make recommendations on how it can be optimized.
Not every IT support specialist knows how to harness the power of machine learning, however.
If that’s something that’s important to you, then make sure that you look for it specifically during the hiring process.
Build an IT Strategy
You can’t just hope to survive with IT by taking it day by day. Instead, you need to have an overall IT strategy so that your network can support your employees and customers in the long-term and deal with any issues that come up.
An in-house IT support specialist will have a great understanding of your business’s IT needs and will thus be able to come up with a sound IT strategy for the long term.
Give Clients Ease of Mind
Clients want to know that your business is not in danger of any technological issues. Thus, their minds will be put at ease by knowing that you have technical support available in-house.
This can be something that sets you head and shoulders above your competitors in the industry.
Remember that removing inhibitions to the purchase is the best way to make a sale happen.
Remove the inhibition of a client thinking your network may go down without technical support, and watch your conversion rates increase.
Scale Your Business
If you plan to grow your business, then you need to scale your IT along with your company.
Your equipment requirements, network requirements, etc. will increase exponentially as you scale your business up.
An in-house IT support specialist will help you to develop a plan to scale your business in the long term.
Optimize Equipment Use
There’s nothing worse than spending a bunch of money on equipment that you don’t need or don’t know how to use.
A technology support specialist can take stock of your technological equipment inventory and make recommendations as to how to best optimize usage of the equipment.
He or she may even be able to make some pieces redundant that you could sell to get some extra quick cash.
A Technology Support Specialist Will Help Your Business
There you have it — now that you have a good handle on how a technology support specialist can help your business, all that remains is for you to hire the right candidate to meet your needs.
Take your time to research the skills and certifications that you want your candidate to have so that you can hire the right person the first time.
For more business advice, be sure to check out the rest of the articles on the website!
