Your IT support partner is one of the most critical relationships your business maintains. Yet many companies continue with the same supplier year after year without properly evaluating whether they're still getting value for money: or if the partnership is even keeping pace with their evolving needs.
If it's been a while since you've taken a hard look at your IT support arrangement, now's the time. Let's walk through the key questions you should be asking to determine if your current supplier is still working for you, or if they're simply working.
What exactly is an MSP?
Before we dive into the evaluation criteria, let's clarify what we mean by a Managed Service Provider (MSP). An MSP is a company that remotely manages your IT infrastructure and end-user systems on an ongoing basis. Rather than calling someone when things break (the old "break-fix" model), you pay a regular fee for continuous monitoring, maintenance, and support.
Think of it like the difference between paying a mechanic each time your car breaks down versus having a comprehensive service plan that includes regular maintenance, diagnostics, and immediate assistance when issues arise. MSPs typically offer:
- 24/7 monitoring of your systems
- Proactive maintenance and updates
- Helpdesk support for your team
- Cybersecurity protection
- Strategic IT planning and consultancy
- Cloud services management
- Backup and disaster recovery
The best MSPs don't just fix problems: they prevent them from happening in the first place whilst helping you leverage technology to achieve your business objectives.
Are they product agnostic?
Here's a crucial question that often gets overlooked: is your IT supplier recommending solutions based on what's best for your business, or based on what earns them the highest commission?
Some IT providers have partnerships or agreements that incentivise them to push particular brands or products, regardless of whether they're the right fit for your needs. This can lead to you paying more for solutions that don't quite work as well as alternatives might.
A genuinely product-agnostic MSP will:
- Assess your requirements first, then recommend solutions
- Present multiple options from different vendors
- Explain the pros and cons of each approach honestly
- Be transparent about any partnerships they maintain
- Focus on interoperability and future flexibility
Ask your current supplier directly: "Do you have any commercial arrangements that influence which products you recommend?" Their answer: and their willingness to be transparent: will tell you a lot about whether they're truly working in your best interests.
Have they scaled with your business?
When you first engaged your IT supplier, your business might have looked very different. Perhaps you had 10 employees working from a single office. Now you might have 50 people across multiple locations, with remote workers, cloud applications, and far more complex security requirements.
The question is: has your IT support evolved to match this growth?
Consider whether your supplier has:
- Proactively suggested infrastructure upgrades as you've expanded
- Adapted their service model to support new ways of working
- Demonstrated knowledge of solutions appropriate for your current scale
- Maintained consistent response times despite your growth
- Anticipated future needs rather than just reacting to current ones
If your supplier is still treating you like the small business you were five years ago, they're not keeping up with your journey. You need a partner who can scale their expertise and services alongside your growth trajectory.
Some warning signs that they haven't grown with you include:
- Still recommending on-premise solutions when cloud might be more appropriate
- Suggesting the same approaches they did years ago
- Struggling to support newer technologies your business needs
- Response times that have deteriorated as you've grown
- Lack of strategic planning for your IT roadmap
Would you recommend them to your network?
This is perhaps the most revealing question you can ask yourself. If a trusted colleague or business contact asked you for an IT support recommendation, would you confidently suggest your current supplier without hesitation?
Your answer to this question cuts through all the rationalisations and gets to the heart of whether you're genuinely satisfied with the service you're receiving. If you'd hesitate or find yourself offering caveats ("They're okay, but…"), that's a clear signal something isn't right.
Consider what your network recommends as well. Word-of-mouth remains one of the most reliable indicators of service quality. If you're hearing consistent praise for other MSPs from your business contacts whilst making excuses for your own supplier, it might be time for a change.
Do they keep you properly informed?
Regular, proactive communication is a hallmark of an excellent IT support relationship. Your MSP should be providing monthly reports that give you clear visibility of:
- System performance and uptime
- Security threats detected and resolved
- Support tickets raised and resolution times
- Maintenance activities completed
- Recommendations for improvements
- Strategic updates on technology relevant to your sector
If you only hear from your IT supplier when there's a problem: or worse, when they're invoicing you: that's not a partnership. That's a transactional relationship that likely isn't delivering the value you deserve.
Quality MSPs will schedule regular business reviews (quarterly at minimum) where they:
- Walk you through performance metrics
- Discuss how IT is supporting your business goals
- Present recommendations for optimisation
- Review budget and forecast upcoming costs
- Ensure you understand the technology roadmap
These shouldn't be sales meetings where they're constantly trying to upsell you. They should be genuine strategic discussions about how technology can better serve your business.
Additional assessment areas
Beyond these core questions, consider evaluating your supplier against these broader criteria:
Service Level Agreement compliance
Are they consistently meeting the response and resolution times specified in your contract? Track this over the past six months: patterns matter more than isolated incidents.
Technical competence
Do their engineers demonstrate current knowledge and qualifications? Technology moves quickly, and your support team needs to move with it. Ask about their training programmes and certifications.
Security standards
How seriously do they take cybersecurity? They should maintain certifications like Cyber Essentials Plus or ISO 27001 and be proactive about keeping your systems protected against evolving threats.
Financial stability
Is your MSP financially secure? You don't want your IT support provider disappearing overnight. It's reasonable to ask about their business stability and how long they've been operating.
Innovation mindset
Are they bringing new ideas to you, or waiting for you to request everything? The best IT partners actively look for ways to improve your operations through emerging technologies.
Conducting your review
Set aside time for a proper evaluation of your IT support relationship. This isn't something to rush through on a Friday afternoon.
Gather feedback from your team about their experiences with the helpdesk. Review your support tickets from the past year. Look at your invoices and assess whether you're getting value for what you're paying. Compare your service levels against industry benchmarks.
If you identify gaps or concerns, start with an honest conversation with your current supplier. Give them the opportunity to address issues before making any decisions. Sometimes relationships can be salvaged and strengthened through direct communication.
However, if fundamental problems persist: particularly around the key questions we've discussed: it might be time to explore alternatives. The cost of switching IT providers is often less than the ongoing cost of mediocre support, especially when you factor in lost productivity, security risks, and missed opportunities.
Your IT infrastructure is far too important to your business to settle for "good enough." You deserve a support partner who is genuinely invested in your success, who grows with you, and who proactively works to keep your systems secure, efficient, and aligned with your goals.
The right IT support relationship should feel like having an expert on your team, not a vendor at arm's length. If that's not what you're experiencing, perhaps it's time to make a change.
If you'd like to talk through your options or sense-check what “good” looks like for your business, get in touch: https://leadership-services.co.uk/contact/
