FAQs

FAQs2022-08-30T20:34:10-05:00
Can we see how our money is being spent and what in turn is being accomplished?2019-08-01T18:14:19-05:00

Yes all issues are logged to our ticketing system that is accessible for review via a web portal at any time and via the monthly invoice you receive. This contains the ticket description with issue, who opened the ticket, when exactly the ticket was worked on, for how long it was worked on and a detailed resolution of the issue. All work performed is confirmable through system logs which can be provided upon request.

How would you say your approach differs from other IT providers?2019-08-01T18:19:13-05:00

We strive to be proactive rather than reactive. Most providers like to sit around and wait for something to break. Where as we like to identify issues before they become problems and break. Keeping downtime and service interruptions to an absolute minimum. This is why we prefer some of the fixed rate billing models. The pay as you go model almost incentives doing poor work to run the clock or keep coming back to fix the same issue.

All the sites seem the same how do we know who to trust?2019-08-01T19:05:06-05:00

Industry certifications such as the CompTia A+ and Network+ that are vendor neutral and almost a prerequisite of calling yourself a PC technician are a good place to start. Then finally and most importantly is a solid level of trust. If you don’t get the right feeling go with your gut it’s very important that there is a rock solid level of trust between us. In addition the knowledge that we have our clients best interest at heart with every decision made.

What forms of payment do you accept and what is your billing policy?2019-08-01T18:23:35-05:00

Payments can be made via check, credit/debit card, PayPal, bank transfer, cash or crypto currency. Payments are generally required upon completion of services rendered. We can also help sell off unneeded equipment if possible.

We aren’t one of your existing clients but we are experiencing a major issue and need someone to come out immediately to resolve the issue. Is this something you are able to do?2019-08-01T18:48:18-05:00

Yes we can assist you by sending out a field technician or engineer depending on the issue. We can start a remote screen share session within minutes or we have a same day onsite guarantee. We would require the signing of a single issue services contract. That would contain the quote, agreed upon hourly rate, number of plus tier of the technician(s) sent, when the work was performed with start/stop times, where, itemized list of work performed, if possible a resolution to the ticket and when payment would be due which baring special circumstances is on completion of services rendered with all equipment/software being paid for upfront.

If we decide to utilize your Lakeside IT as a Service (ITaaS) and needed to scale back our number of employees. Would this affect the monthly bill?2019-07-08T17:20:12-05:00

Yes since its based on the number of active users. So by letting go employees your monthly total would go down accordingly. This would be reflected in your next monthly bill. We would require all the extra equipment be returned at this time. Those users accounts would be disabled however not deleted in case you need recover data from them or if the employee(s) are hired back.

We store lots of sensitive data and or intellectual property how do we know this is being kept safe and not being shared or leaked?2019-07-08T17:24:46-05:00

Our contract specifically addresses this by forbidding any of our staff from sharing, selling, distributing or exposing anything we see our interact with while working on your systems. Each employee has a unique log in and everything done while logged in is recorded to multiple places. So a simple audit would reveal the culprit. Also two factor authentication (2FA) will keep people from using another users log in credentials even if they knew the username and password. To keep this from happening in the first place we recommend restricting the most sensitive data to a very few select number of people limiting the exposure. With real-time monitoring and our Lake View service we could even catch people in the act hopefully stopping them in their tracks before any damage is done.

What if we are late in paying our bill will our services get shut off?2019-07-08T17:25:17-05:00

We know how important your systems are and the repercussions of them being unavailable even for a short amount of time. So we are never quick to shut off service nor do we employ a system that does this automatically. We understand that if we want to get paid it certainly doesn’t help the cause by shutting your systems off. This is an understandable question as we’ve all used service providers that are quick to pull the plug. As long as you stay in communication with our billing team and keep us apprised of the situation and when can expect full or partial payment we will not shut off your service. However after 30 days with no response or time frame in which payment will be made. We would consider doing a soft suspension basically making the equipment inaccessible but still powered on with all the data still there. Then when payment is received access can be restored within seconds.

We noticed some of your services have a one year minimum contract term. If we aren’t satisfied with the service is this something we can get out of?2019-07-08T17:25:44-05:00

We’ve never had a client that’s wanted to get out of one of our contracts. Our retention rate is over 98% but were not in the business of forcing people in to agreements they don’t want to be in. I once heard a vendor compare their service to a crappy gym membership and informed me we cant leave just because we don’t like it. That is most definitively not our feeling on the subject and we don’t want to force a client to stay if they don’t want to. The reason we put a minimum term on certain services is because of the investment we need to put in to offer the service. However if you want to leave we would need to at least break even from our investment and this could be easily figured out. Then you can decide to pay an early termination fee to cover this investment or continue service until we’ve broken even which is usually half way through the contract term.

Do you have references we can contact to inquire about the quality of your service?2019-07-08T17:26:11-05:00

Yes we have several references that we can pass on the contact info for that you can contact at anytime to inquire about our service.

We have a problem with our projects not getting finished what guarantee do we have this wont happen with Lakeside Techs?2019-07-08T17:27:15-05:00

This is a very common issue in the industry and really shows the difference between a bad and a good IT provider. Anyone can promise everything under the sun. Start a project and complete 75% of it collect the money and make up an excuse for why the final 25% cant be completed. We take a down payment on projects but will not request final payment until 100% done. Part of this is knowing what is actually possible and not promising things that aren’t possible just to make the sale. This is why the first person we send out is a sales engineer and not just a salesman.

We currently receive IT support from a firm that is located out of state or country. Would you be able to provide onsite or remote support when our other firm is unable?2019-08-01T19:18:48-05:00

Yes we often work with other firms to accomplish a wide variety of activities. We can set up remote screen share support within a matter of minutes or we have a same day onsite guarantee for most locations to resolve or at least identify any type of IT related issue. If you just need something new set up we would be more than happy to help as well.

We are expanding rapidly and our current IT provider cant seem to keep up. How do you deal with a client that is growing rapidly?2019-08-02T10:33:26-05:00

A lot of our competitors are one man shows. Which for very small businesses works out well. When you grow beyond this point a single person just cant be everywhere at once. This is why having a team with a 24/7 help desk, senior engineer and tiers 1-3 support technicians makes all the difference. Now we can adhere to a strict service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees a ticket will be responded to and issue resolved within a certain amount of time.

We are happy with our current provider but would be interested in hearing any recommendations and confirming our systems are configured properly is this something you will do?2019-07-08T17:31:29-05:00

Let us schedule a free technology audit and send out a sales engineer. Its free so nothing to lose and we will create a personalized presentation detailing exactly what we would do differently. If you like what we’ve presented we can move forward. If you don’t no harm no foul and you can continue with your current provider.

We prefer having technician onsite during our busiest times is this something you can provide?2019-07-08T17:32:06-05:00

Yes we can act as a staffing firm and provide a qualified technician to work at your office on a set schedule. You would then also have access to the rest of technicians and engineers to augment the onsite resource. A best of both worlds scenario.

We primarily use public/private cloud based services i.e. Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure/Office 365, Google Cloud/Gsuite, Zoho, IBM Softlayer or one of the many other service providers. That or a hybrid mixture of different cloud based providers and or in house infrastructure. Would you still be able to provide support without needing to migrate our data to your cloud or preferred hosting solution?2022-10-09T12:59:05-05:00

Yes, we provide support for any configuration from one to multiple cloud based services. Including all the major service providers already listed plus Digital ocean, Equinix, Linode, Vultr, Rackspace, Digital realty, Coresite, Godaddy, Salesforce, Oracle, OVH, InMotion, HostGator, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, DreamHost, Hostwinds and any other service provider you may be using. We also support hybrid environments that use both cloud and in house infrastructure. In addition to support, we also perform consultations, migrations, installations, consolidations, integration, simplification, upgrades, full system/network refreshes and anything else you may need. When we first meet, we will perform a free audit of all your businesses IT assets and service providers. From that audit data we perform an initial analysis compiling a report of what all you have, where it’s located, what you are paying, negative/positive attributes of your IT setup based on your feedback and our knowledge of all the products/services available in the market. From there we compile a more detailed analysis based on monitoring your usage over the course of a couple months. Then we provide recommendations based on everything we’ve learned about your business and IT processes. That could be anything from don’t change a thing, to ways of increasing your return on investment, to more efficient and or time saving methods that don’t sacrifice the quality of your finished product. Then if you are interested in any or all of our recommendations. We set up demos or test environments this way you don’t have to take our word for it. Now you and your team get to try it out. Let you see for yourself what else is possible without having to spend a ton of money or make a decision that could severely impact your business.

We are interested in changing IT providers but we cant afford a large on-boarding fee and new equipment is something you can help with?2019-07-08T17:33:56-05:00

We offer a free technology audit which covers most of the on-boarding process. Once the audit is complete we develop a list of solutions to choose from. Some of which have no upfront costs and include all the equipment, hosting, monitoring and internet you need at a per user fixed monthly rate.

We already have an IT support provider what should we be considering?2019-07-08T17:35:13-05:00

Are you satisfied with the service you receive? Are they on time and reachable during an emergency? Do they complete all the jobs they start? Are you plagued with issues and or downtime? Do you get a lot of one vendor blaming another for why things don’t work properly? Do you feel like you pay a fair amount for the work performed? If so you should at least schedule a free audit to see how we would do things differently.

We have an in-house technician would there be any benefit to considering outsourcing?2019-08-02T10:54:06-05:00

Just because you have an in-house technician doesn’t mean you cant benefit from our services. We can act as an escalation point for your onsite technician assisting in issues they are unable to resolve. We can also act as an overflow point when there is just too much work for your in-house staff to handle or during projects. You can also benefit from our various services and hosting such as Lake View monitoring, Lakeside cloud internet and our Lakeside IT Cloud. Also depending on what you pay for in-house staffing we could offer the same level of service or better leveraging an entire team of technicians and engineers. Also the ability to leverage our vendor relationships and bulk purchases for deep hardware and software discounts.

Help our system is down and we don’t have an IT provider, we cant get a hold of our IT provider or our existing provider or in-house technician is unable to resolve the issue. Can you send someone out the same day without signing a long term commitment?2019-08-02T21:55:26-05:00

Yes we have available field technicians and engineers. With a same day onsite guarantee to most locations. We would require signing a one time service contract. That spells out the billing terms and the terms of service.