A Complete Guide to 24×7 IT Support Service for Your Business

Errors, bugs, crashes, hardware or software issues, and other tech malfunctions are all forms of IT downtime. According to a study by Gartner, IT downtime costs the average business $5,600 per minute. When your equipment prevents you and your staff from focusing on core business tasks, access to a 24×7 IT support team is critical to restoring operations.

Understanding the benefits of round-the-clock managed IT solutions and what issues a 24×7 IT support team resolves can help you optimize your business workflow and prevent cyber attacks and IT disasters from causing irreparable damage to your company.

What is 24×7 IT Support?

24×7 or 24/7 IT support, also known as tech support, is a round-the-clock service dedicated to troubleshooting and assisting with issues with an organization’s technological devices. IT support is equipped to help with problems and malfunctions on computers, mobile devices, peripherals such as scanners and printers, phone equipment, and the underlying networks and infrastructure.

As with any 24/7 customer service provider, a round-the-clock IT support team should have personnel available 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, to ensure fast response times, rapid problem resolution, and good customer service.

National Technology Management (NTM) offers 24/7 support and managed IT solutions for your business. These include HaaS and SaaS services, software patch management, IT automation, and proactive monitoring and support.

Essential Services Offered By IT Support Teams

While most customers expect general troubleshooting from an IT support service, a dedicated team of 24/7 customer support agents can offer many other essential services and options, such as:

Managed Cybersecurity Service

With a 24/7 managed cybersecurity service, organizations can benefit from robust security protection and rapid response to potential threats, enabling them to focus on their core business activities.

NTM’s Security Operations Center (SOC) provides around-the-clock surveillance, threat detection, and response capabilities to protect a company’s network. This advanced security solution provides comprehensive monitoring, robust protection, effective issue mitigation protocols, and roll-back capabilities to defend against a wide range of threats, such as viruses, spyware, and malware that could compromise network integrity.

Data Backup and Disaster Recovery

A 24/7 IT support team has the means to develop a data backup and disaster recovery strategy that meets the customer’s demands. They protect your business data and assets from multiple threats, from corruption and data loss to ransomware attacks.

NTM’s Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plan provides optimal security through cloud-based restoration points, hourly data backups, geographically diverse data storage, and specialized recovery speed testing protocols.

Training, Education, and Support

From knowledge bases to direct training of your staff, a dedicated IT support team can provide learning materials and teach you the best practices necessary to make each staff member an active participant in your data security.

The NTM IT support team can provide ongoing education and training to teach your personnel how to recognize and avoid signs of phishing, such as fake emails or social media fraud.

Benefits of 24×7 IT Support Services

There are many critical benefits to having access to a 24/7 IT support service, especially when compared to traditional 9-to-5 support. These include:

Short Wait Times

Traditional 9-to-5 support services can only fix your issues during conventional business hours. If your business devices experience a problem or outage outside these hours, you must wait until the next business day to receive assistance.

A 24/7 IT support service addresses these possibilities. The ability to provide assistance and troubleshooting issues at any hour, every day of the year, means you don’t have to wait if you discover a significant problem. 24/7 service also reduces the risk of backlogging, ensuring you receive prompt assistance when needed.

Improved Reach

With modern communication channels such as live chat support, personnel from various time zones, and flexible working hours, a 24/7 IT support team always has people ready to connect with you and diagnose your issues.

In addition to not being constrained to standard 9-to-5 schedules, you don’t need to account for the time zones of a remote team, allowing you to call for assistance at any hour. NTM has emergency support staff available for dispatch anytime, day or night.

Great Customer Experience

If other businesses experience problems at the same time you do, a traditional support service may be backlogged and may put you on hold, increasing the time it takes to issue resolution and creating a frustrating experience.

A 24/7 IT support team is significantly less likely to be backlogged or put you on hold, ensuring quicker issue resolution, minimizing downtime, and improving your experience.

Which Businesses Need 24×7 IT Support?

Despite the numerous benefits of 24/7 IT customer support, some businesses may not need round-the-clock service. Understanding which types of businesses require 24×7 IT support can help determine whether it’s a worthwhile investment for your organization. You may need 24/7 IT support if:

Your Organization Also Works 24/7

If your organization operates around the clock, it makes sense for your IT support service to be available 24/7.

If your business is in the healthcare industry, the energy sector, manufacturing, or handles critical infrastructure, you understand that 24/7 availability is vital. Without continuous support, tech downtime can disrupt your operations.

An IT support team with round-the-clock availability can detect, respond, and fix technology problems as soon as they are discovered, ensuring you can resume business operations and restore your availability to your customers as quickly as possible.

Your Business Serves a Global Area

Many organizations serve customers or work with partners worldwide, with time zone differences between each partner. For these organizations, disruptions at specific hours may cause them to become unavailable at critical moments, such as during an overseas partner’s business hours.

A 24/7 IT support team can respond to disruptions and help you address the cause of your downtime during your worldwide partners’ availability.

Customer Satisfaction is Critical to Your Operations

If your business is customer-facing and offers products or services with 24/7 availability, an outage or a technical issue can create frustration and reduce customer satisfaction. If these disruptions happen frequently, it can significantly harm your bottom line in the long term.

Access to a 24/7 IT support service is critical to maintaining your ability to serve customers, address their needs, and minimize stress and time wasted on both ends.

Most Common Issues Addressed By 24×7 IT Customer Support Teams

While IT support teams can offer assistance and tech support in many ways, you might wonder what day-to-day and general troubleshooting problems they can help you resolve. Explore the following common IT problems you may face and how assistance from a 24/7 IT support team can help you.

• Slow devices: While most computers and mobile devices become slower and lose performance over time, many other potential issues, like viruses or malware, can cause unexpected performance drops. A 24/7 IT team can help you diagnose your device, identify possible causes of slowdowns, and address them.
• Slow internet: If your business’s internet connection is experiencing unexpected drops in the upload or download speeds or Wi-Fi disruptions, an IT support team can analyze your network status and find the cause of the problem.
• File recovery: Occasionally, critical business files may be deleted by mistake. When accidents happen, they can disrupt your operations if not addressed quickly. An IT team can access your backups or use file recovery software to help you reacquire lost or accidentally deleted documents.
• Peripheral issues: If your business frequently deals with physical documents, your equipment may include a fleet of scanners, printers, and similar devices. These devices need maintenance and can encounter various problems that an IT team is also equipped to fix.
• Malware: Even the best business security and anti-malware resources cannot stop 100% of malicious files. If you believe that malware has infected some of your business devices, a 24/7 IT team can respond, remove it, and repair any damage it may have caused.
• Hardware overheating: The more tasks you perform, the more processing power they demand from your devices, increasing the temperature of their internal components. This can cause your devices to overheat, degrading their performance and lifespan. Overheating machines may sometimes crash or shut down unexpectedly, potentially losing work in progress. A 24/7 IT support team can investigate the issue, determine whether your hardware needs maintenance or replacement, and eliminate overheating.

Receive 24/7 IT Assistance From NTM’s Experts

National Technology Management is a full-stack managed IT services provider with extensive experience managing and optimizing business IT equipment. Part of our services includes 24/7 IT support to address any of your organizational computing and troubleshooting needs.

Contact us today to learn more about NTM and how we can help you keep your business operations safe.