Changing IT support provider feels risky. The current setup is, at minimum, familiar. The new provider promises the world. The contract you're about to sign runs for three years.
We've onboarded a lot of clients from competitors over the years, and we've also lost the occasional client who later asked to come back when the new provider didn't deliver. So we've got a fair view from both sides of the fence.
Here are the nine questions we'd actually want a prospective customer to ask us, and any other provider they're considering.
1. What's your contract length, and what's the exit clause?
Three-year lock-in contracts with eye-watering early-termination fees are still common. Ours aren't. Flexible contracts with sensible notice periods is what good providers offer because they're confident you'll stay because of the service, not the paperwork.
Ask: "If I want to leave in 12 months, what does that look like, and do I get my data back?" If the answer involves a calculator, walk away.
2. What's actually included in the monthly fee, and what isn't?
The headline price often hides what counts as "extra". Things to clarify in writing:
- Is project work included or charged separately?
- Are out-of-hours incidents covered?
- Is onsite work included or per-visit?
- Are licence costs (Microsoft 365, antivirus, backup) bundled or separate?
- What about hardware procurement margin?
A clear all-in price beats a low headline with bills that surprise you every month.
3. What are your response times, and are they written into the contract?
"Fast response" is meaningless without numbers. Ask for priority-based response time SLAs in writing:
- Priority 1 (critical, business stopped): minutes
- Priority 2 (urgent, user blocked): under an hour
- Priority 3 (routine): same business day
- Priority 4 (cosmetic): within 2 business days
Then ask for the last quarter's actual SLA performance. A confident provider will share it. We publish ours to clients monthly, see IT support for our service approach.
4. Who actually picks up the phone?
This matters more than you'd think. Some providers have a UK-based first-line team that escalates to UK engineers. Some outsource first-line abroad. Some use voicemail-and-callback.
Ask: "If I ring at 10am on a Tuesday, who answers, where are they, and what can they do for me directly?"
For us: our helpdesk runs Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 17:30, from our Solihull office, with monitoring and on-call cover outside those hours.
5. What security standards do you operate to, and prove it to me
Your IT provider is your highest-risk supplier from a cyber perspective. Minimum questions:
- Are you Cyber Essentials Plus certified? (Show me the cert.)
- Do you have ISO 27001? (Show me the cert and the scope.)
- Do you have professional indemnity and cyber liability insurance? What's the cover?
- How are your engineers' access permissions controlled? (PAM, MFA, audit trails)
- What happens to my access when one of your engineers leaves?
Anyone who fudges these questions or sends you a marketing PDF instead of certificates is hiding something. Our certifications are listed on the about page.
6. How do you handle onboarding?
The first 90 days set the tone. A good onboarding includes:
- Documentation audit and update (most providers inherit terrible documentation)
- Asset inventory and licensing reconciliation
- Security baseline check (MFA, patching, backups, antivirus)
- A written gap analysis at day 30 and day 90
- Named points of contact on both sides
Ask to see a sample onboarding plan. If they can't produce one, they don't have a process. Ours is a 4-step "How We Make IT Simple" timeline, planning, transition, ongoing support, regular reviews.
7. What's your typical client size, and can I speak to two of them?
If you're a 25-person business, a provider that mostly looks after 200-seat enterprises will find you fiddly. A provider that mostly looks after 5-person businesses will find you stretching. Match matters.
Always ask for two reference customers of similar size in similar sectors, and actually ring them. We share references for businesses like ours regularly. Case studies are here too.
8. How do you handle exit and data return?
The provider who takes the trouble to explain the exit process up front is the one who isn't planning to hold you hostage later. You should expect:
- Full documentation handover (network diagrams, credentials, asset register, licence ownership)
- Microsoft 365 / cloud admin access transferred to your nominated person
- Knowledge transfer sessions with the incoming provider
- Cooperation throughout the notice period (not malicious withdrawal)
Get this in writing in the contract.
9. What does "managed IT support" actually cover beyond the helpdesk?
The reactive bit (fix-it-when-it-breaks) is table stakes. The bit that separates good providers from average ones is what they do proactively:
- Patch and vulnerability management, automated, reported monthly
- Backup monitoring and quarterly recovery tests
- Quarterly Strategic Business Reviews, reviewing what's working, what's next
- Security posture reporting (not just "we ran antivirus")
- Lifecycle planning for hardware and licensing
If the answer is "we're reactive, you ring us when something breaks", that's break-fix, not managed IT.
Bonus question: how do I know if my current provider is bad enough to leave?
Honestly? Look for these signs:
- You don't know your account manager's name
- You haven't had a strategic review in 12 months
- Tickets sit for days without an update
- You can't get the answer to "is our backup actually working?" in writing
- Costs creep up but service doesn't
- The same problems keep recurring without a root-cause fix
- Security recommendations come from your insurance broker, not your IT provider
Two or more of those? Worth a conversation.
What happens if you talk to us?
A 30-minute call. We listen, we ask questions, and we tell you honestly whether we'd be a fit, including saying "no, you're fine, stay where you are" if that's the right answer (it sometimes is).
If we are a fit, we send a written proposal with all-in pricing and a 90-day onboarding plan. No high-pressure sales. No three-year lock-in. Just a sensible conversation.
Book the 30-minute call or read more on our IT support service page.