Your desk starts at 7.30. Does your IT support?
IT support usually runs on business hours, 9 to 5.30 or thereabouts. Recruitment desks often don't. Consultants ring candidates before the candidate's own working day starts or after it ends, because that's when many people can talk, and a fault at 7.45am costs you calls you don't get back.
Where the gap shows up
Nobody notices a support hours gap when they sign the contract. They notice it on an ordinary Tuesday.
- Early starts. A consultant logs on at 7.30 to reach candidates before their day begins, and the login fails. Support opens at 9. That's an hour and a half of calling time gone, and they're waiting instead of billing.
- Late calls. A hiring manager may only have time to talk at six in the evening. The headset stops working at 5.55 and nobody is there to help.
- Cut off days. If you run a temp or contract desk, timesheet and payroll deadlines don't move. A fault at 4.45pm on cut off day needs fixing that evening, not tomorrow.
Five questions to put to any provider
- What hours does a person pick up? Not an automated reply or a ticket form, but an engineer who can act.
- What happens outside those hours? A number that gets answered, an emergency route, or a message that waits until morning?
- Is out of hours cover in the monthly fee, or billed per call? Get the rate in writing before you need it.
- How long until a common fault is fixed, not just acknowledged?
- Who covers when your usual contact is on holiday or off sick?
Response time is not fix time
Response time is the easy number to quote, because an automated acknowledgement can hit it. Ask for the typical time to fix a common fault, such as a locked account or a CRM that won't load, and ask how that's measured. If the answer is vague, treat the response time with caution.
The last question matters more than it looks. A single contractor who is the only person who knows your setup is a support gap every time they take a week off.
Work out your own hours first
Before you compare providers, write down three things: the earliest time anyone on your desk logs on, the latest time anyone is still on a client or candidate call, and the dates in the month when downtime costs you most. Then hold each contract up against that list. Gaps are easier to price in at the start than to discover later.
Comparing providers properly means checking the same things every time. See how to choose an IT support provider for a London recruitment agency, and what outsourced IT support costs a recruitment agency for how out of hours cover affects the price.
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