Technical Support: In-House vs. Outsourced
IT support is a critical aspect in business, especially in these times when the use of technology is so widespread. In your own backyard, you’ll find that a lot of your processes depend on your organization’s IT system and resources. For instance, your IT team is responsible for making sure that your files and data are stored and backed up properly, or that only authorized persons will have access to your internal network.
Tech support also helps resolve issues and complaints that customers might have when using your product or navigating your site, app, software, and the like. Altogether, these forms of support can offer tremendous value to your business’s growth, which makes it imperative that you invest in excellent IT support for your business.
The question is whether you should build your own team or outsource your tech support. Because both options come with their own advantages and drawbacks, it might not be easy for you to choose one over the other. A good rule of thumb is to use your unique business situation as the basis for your decision.
Here’s a rundown of how an in-house and outsourced technical support stack up against each other.
The In-House Tech Support Option
| Pros | Cons |
| Your employees’ salary will be the same regardless of the size or nature of the task at hand. | You’ll need to scale up your team to cater to a broad range of expertise. |
| You’ll have a point person on site most of the time, so addressing issues will be fairly quick. | You must have an on-call staff to deal with problems that happen outside of regular working hours, on holidays, or when your point person is unavailable. |
| The team knows your company’s set-up and system inside out. | You need to invest in regular training to your IT staff to upgrade their skills. |
Requirements
Having the right resources can help ensure that your in-house IT support team operates efficiently. It all starts with recruiting network administrators, developers, and technicians with a degree or certification in the fields of computer science, computing, or software engineering. Your candidate should demonstrate skills in troubleshooting, logical thinking, and problem-solving.
Time management is also an important aspect since your IT team will be dealing with time-sensitive service issues and requests. Not to mention the need for good interpersonal skills (they are your support staff after all). Without good communication, you're bound to run into some problems.
There should be a dedicated workspace for your tech support team, too. You’ll need to set it up with the right infrastructure, including the necessary hardware and software. Your team won’t be able to do without internet connectivity, servers, modern computers, routers, telecom equipment, productivity applications, database management system, and the like.
When Do You Need an In-house IT Support?
Here are some cases when it might be ideal to build or maintain your own tech team:
- You’re developing a product and you need to closely coordinate different aspects of the project with your team.
- You’ve implemented customized systems that only your team can understand.
- You’re in the fintech industry, where the technology itself is the main product or unique selling proposition of your company.
- Your operations involve handling ultra-sensitive data that you’re not willing to share with third parties.
The Outsourced Tech Support Option
| Pros | Cons |
| Your customers will have 24/7 access to an IT help desk. | There might be communication or cultural barriers between your customers/employees and your outsourced tech support team. |
| You have lower overhead costs, including those related to infrastructure, employee benefits, and trainings, as well as building leases. | You might have limited management control over remote employees. |
| You have more free time focus on your business’s daily operations and core competencies. | You have to set parameters regarding data privacy and intellectual property concerns. |
Requirements
With outsourced technical support, most of the requirements pertaining to recruitment, training, and IT infrastructure will be the responsibility of your service provider. However, you must determine the level of IT support service to outsource. Here are three possible models:
- Break-Fix Support. The outsourcing company remotely fixes any issues with any of your computers or your network as they happen. There will be additional charges for on-site visits or when there are replacement parts needed for your equipment.
- Pro-active Support. The goal is for the IT support company to prevent system outages in your network through regular monitoring or updating of your hardware and software.
- Fully Managed Support. This involves delegating all of your IT support and maintenance needs to the outsourcing company. If you’re choosing this service model, make sure to discuss key areas such as response times, staff coverage hours, compatibility of applications, hardware warranties, and everything else that might impact the quality of support for your company or customers.
When Do You Need to Outsource Your Tech Support?
You may need to hire an expert tech support team in these situations:
- You plan to use your cost savings to build bigger or better products or services.
- You’re in an industry – e-commerce included – where you want to focus on what you’re selling rather than how you’re selling it.
- You have different skill and knowledge requirements for every project in the pipeline.
- You’re working with critical deadlines for your project, product, or service.
- Your business is expanding into foreign markets or highly specialized industries.
Final Words
There’s no question about the importance of a good IT support for your business. While choosing between having an internal IT help desk and outsourcing to an expert tech support team may depend on your business priorities, it’s worth noting that outsourced IT support offers several long-term benefits for your company. These may range from reduced operational costs to a wider pool of IT experts and access to on-demand services.
As a result, your product or service model becomes more efficient and satisfying for your customers while providing overall growth for your business.
Find out how the experts at Intelligent Bee can make technical support a breeze!
