Does changing IT support company feel like a risky move? Are you worried about downtime, and interference from the move? There’s no need to worry, follow me as I onboard a local law firm IT support client…

First Contact

After being contacted by local solicitors about switching IT support, I popped over to say hello and have a walk around their systems. This only took about 20-30 minutes, we didn’t require any passwords and the audit was completely non-intrusive. We discussed what they would like, and any issues/shortfalls/new requirements they had. I followed up with our proposal aaand… a beautiful new relationship began.

On-Boarding (gathering the basics)

The next step in changing IT support is technical onboarding. We sent a small list of questions to forward to the old IT support firm, mainly passwords and further technical details. Most IT providers don’t copy Liberate’s ‘give you everything’ approach, so we start building new documentation as we audit and discover remotely. Rather than attempt to remotely audit everything, we normally spend an hour or two walking the floor in the office, you can’t miss anything if you do this onsite!

As I mentioned, we share all our documentation with you, so even if you move on from Liberate IT Support, you’ll have everything you need to make a smooth transition and ensure you are always looked after.

IT Health Check

Once we have built our documentation, and tested we can access everything, we begin an IT health check. We audit all users and devices to identify stale devices that are no longer present or in use, so their access to your data can be removed. Think of this as a good clear-out, and tidy-up, one that helps systems run efficiently and securely, and may even reduce your costs on per-user/device licenses! We don’t just switch your IT support, we improve and upgrade your IT!

IT Security Improvements

The next step is IT security… we audit all remote access and IT security measures to ensure your business is Cyber Essentials compliant. Even if you don’t want to attain the Cyber Essentials certification, it is a government-recognised baseline we can use to ensure all our client systems are secure. We then take further steps such as utilising conditional access, mobile device management (MDM), and a few more tricks we won’t disclose for security purposes. Rest assured you are now in safe hands!

Email System Improvements

Next, we check your email system is up to scratch. Activating and correctly configuring features such as DKIM, DMARC and SPF help to secure your email system, as well as giving your emails a much better chance of getting through to your clients and suppliers. Bouncebacks should be a thing of the past once your email system is configured correctly. We finish the email check-up by standardising and modernising your email signature with our central signature management software – Exclaimer.

Audit Completion

Finally, we fully audit the software on all your devices. We activate our patch management solution to ensure all software is kept up to date, which reduces security risks as well as software bugs and glitches (basically making your software run smoothly). If necessary we’ll alert you to any older devices, which should be replaced first. We install our remote access, antivirus and monitoring software.

Welcome to Liberate IT Support!

Now our documentation and your systems are up to scratch, we send out our welcome email to all your staff to let them know who we are, and any things to look out for (such as our regular online user training to help improve IT security standards throughout your company, to reduce the human risk factor). We also set up an intranet site, with simple self-help guides and automated forms for new users/hardware requests. Switching IT support provider complete!

At this point you can sit back and get on with what you do best, leaving us to take care of your business IT support.

This walkthrough was done with a local solicitors firm, and the same high standards are applied to all our onboarding, whether it is IT support for engineering, legal, accounting or manufacturing customers.

If you want a smooth transition to the best IT support for your business, email info@liberateit.co.uk or call 0115 684 8800.