Benefits of Working with a Local MSP

Regardless of your industry, your reliance on information technology is growing year after year, and you can’t afford to employ a team of trained IT staff on a full-time basis. The solution is obvious.

You need to outsource to a managed service provider (MSP) so that you can access top talent and innovative technologies at affordable prices.

But do you know which MSP is right for you?

It may seem that all MSPs do the same thing: remotely managing a customer’s IT infrastructure. However, there are many important differences in how local MSPs and larger MSPs approach this task and understanding them is the key to making the best choice possible.

As a small business ourselves, we provide local MSP support in Minneapolis and the Washington D.C. areas. At Teal, we are up against large companies with out-of-state centralized help desks and hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of employees.

But even though we’re outnumbered, we’re certainly not outgunned because there’s a lot that only a local MSP can offer.

Why Working with a Local MSP Can Benefit Your Business

They Understand Your Business

When an organization partners with a large MSP, it joins the ranks of countless other faceless customers from all parts of the country.

It then receives one-size-fits-all customer service that may or may not meet all its needs.

When it doesn’t, the large MSP is typically less than willing to understand how it could better serve the organization and customize its services accordingly.

A Local MSP Offers Tailored IT Services and Support

In contrast, a local MSP is all about offering personalized solutions to organizations that operate in an area the provider is deeply familiar with.

As such, each solution can be tailored specifically to help the organization meet its short-term and long-term business goals and adjusted on an ongoing basis as these goals are met.

Because the value of personalized solutions steadily increases over time, it’s in the best interest of local MSPs to establish and maintain long-term relationships with its customers, instead of accepting the high turnover that’s characteristic for large providers.

Hands-on Assistance

Even though many national MSPs promise to take complete care of their customers’ IT needs, they often offer not much more than glorified remote support.

Unless you’re located right next to a national provider’s regional branch, all the support you’ll receive will likely happen over the phone or video call. That might be acceptable for certain types of IT issues, but there are times where hands-on assistance is indispensable.

If your organization is in Minneapolis or Washington DC, and you partner with a local MSP like Teal, you can rest assured that someone will always be ready to provide on-site support when needed.

Over time, you’ll develop close personal relationships with your local provider. Why?

Because you’ll be talking with the same few people whenever you need help with something – especially your dedicated account manager.

In a time of crisis, just seeing a familiar face can be reassuring and go a long way when it comes to improving team morale.

Fast and Always Available

Downtime is expensive. The last thing you want to experience when a critical piece of your IT infrastructure stops working is a long queue of customers (just like you) who are trying to reach a remote provider over the phone.

Because Teal is focused on delivering ultra-responsive support – we’ve built a team that is fast, reliable and nimble.

This makes us ready to solve problems without requiring our customers to talk to three different people and get through miles of red tape just to get things going in the right direction.

The responsiveness of local MSPs can translate into massive cost savings – since every minute of downtime can cost a small business as much as $427.

To put these numbers into perspective, that’s roughly one median US household income saved for every two hours of downtime.

Interested in Working with a Local MSP?

If you’re thinking about outsourcing IT to an MSP, consider the advantages of going local. At Teal, we proudly provide IT support and IT service for small businesses in: