You can opt for a managed IT service provider, if your organization wants to free up staff for core tasks or if you don't want to invest in a fully-fledged IT department. However, some vendors can still fail to have successful engagements regardless of the growth of the MSP market.

Many clients still struggle to extract value from their managed service provider. Below are a few top tips for choosing a managed IT service provider if you're having problems with your MSP or when planning to hire one.

Examine Their Policy on Your Control of Access

A managed service provider's policy on access control is one crucial thing that most customers often don't think about when hiring an MSP. Unfortunately, some dishonest providers can hold you hostage and even refuse to turn over admin passwords until you pay them cancellation fees or other fees they might demand to compensate for lost business. Of course, this can result in significant problems if you're planning to switch to a different provider.

To avoid frustrations, you can give your managed IT provider a duplicate admin account for access control and remove the rights to change the admin password. Whenever you decide you don’t want to work with the MSP anymore, you can just disable or delete the replica admin account. What’s more, when talking to your managed IT service provider, it will be best of your interest to ensure you find out what their policy is on your control of access.

Monitoring and Reporting

Another key element when looking for an MSP is to find out if your managed service provider can monitor your network and actively seek problems. Plus, you ought to find out if your preferred provider has a track record of calling their clients when there's a problem before you get to know about it.

By contacting their existing customers you can get to know how convenient the MSP is. Also, talk to people within the industry and even go further to search for online reviews. Additionally, Google reviews can typically be useful especially if you’re engaging a local company.

Furthermore, your managed IT service provider must be able to offer you with regular reports on the performance of your network infrastructure. Anything less than this is something to be worried about, and you might be better off paying for the IT managed service elsewhere.