The Fine Print: How Inexperienced IT Technicians Can Cost You

Lower costs don’t always equate to a good deal.

When it comes to your IT needs, there are plenty of businesses out there who offer lower upfront prices to complete a variety of projects. “Spend less for the same great service,” is a phrase you’ve probably seen tossed around before. The question is, where are these savings coming from?

Most often, these savings come in the form of less-knowledgeable IT technicians, who are less expensive to hire than their more skilled counterparts. This means the people working on your IT infrastructure may be learning by trial-and-error while on the job. As you might imagine, working with inexperienced IT technicians can often lead to bigger costs down the road – some of which could potentially dwarf the budgetary restraints which kept you from working with a more experienced person.

Let’s take a look at where some of these unplanned costs can come from and how you can avoid falling victim to them.

Obvious Errors

The simplest way under-trained IT technicians can cost you is by making on-the-job errors. Now, if you are working with an official-looking IT provider, you’ll likely assume this isn’t something you have to worry about. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t the case. Technician vetting across the industry can vary wildly. Some companies, for example, will allow basically anyone to register as a technician through their online portals. There may be some vetting down the road, but obviously this the process your business deserves.

If you do happen to get stuck with an unknowledgeable technician, you could face a wide range of small to large on-the-job errors. Maybe wiring is carried out incorrectly, for example. Perhaps it’s set up so that your office layout becomes cumbersome in small, yet still annoying ways. Aesthetically, your cabling could be done in such a way as to impact the appeal of your work surroundings – think partially exposed wires running across the floor or being fed through obvious holes in your wall. While it may not seem like much, little things like this can add up – especially if you regularly host clients or prospects within your surroundings.

There’s a lot that can go wrong that results in you having to pay even more than you originally bargained for in order to fix. No two IT environments are ever the same. You need smart, experienced technicians who can troubleshoot any errors that might come up during the management of your project and adapt to these varied environments.

Future upgrades Ruined

Inexperienced IT technicians can also hamper your potential future projects by not having the knowledge or foresight to plan ahead. Take wiring, for example. Let’s say a technician has been hired to run some networking cabling for you. They come in and do the job well, but in the process of doing so, inform you that they “have” to make some minor infrastructure improvements. This results in them drilling a few holes through a wall and funneling them through – nothing too serious.

Some time passes and, in order to support your business, you need to do some network upgrades. So you contact the same company you used for your last installation, only they send a different technician this time. This new technician arrives at your property, takes a look at your wiring and lets you know that this job won’t be as simple as they originally thought. When you ask why, they point out that your previous upgrades – the aforementioned cabling project – was run incorrectly and they can’t obtain access to what they need for this new project. The only solution is to redo the first project to make room for you newest upgrade.

This is an all too common situation many organizations find themselves facing. While the first job may not have been done poorly, it was completed without considering what needs your organization might have in the future. Instead, it was treated as a one-off job. When a more holistic approach isn’t taken with your IT environment, your organization loses.

The Technician Difference

Obviously, the situation we just described would have been completely avoided if the technician would have had the knowledge and ability to take full stock of this organization’s infrastructure. Instead of having to invest even more money in having this wiring corrected, imagine that the initial tech would have assessed the situation, made note of how this wiring might impede future projects and then offered suggestions that left this area open for enhancements in the coming years. 

Simply put, trained, knowledgeable IT technicians make all the difference. From avoiding obvious errors, to looking at your IT infrastructure as a constantly changing and growing part of your business that requires a thoughtful strategy, they’ll likely have more tools at their disposal to provide your organization with the expertise you need.

So whenever you speak with an IT provider about any project you need assistance on, be sure to ask about how they recruit their workers and how they vet them. Before moving forward with any vendor, you need to be sure that the people you’re trusting to lead your projects are worth receiving this trust. Only then can you rest easy knowing your projects have been carefully considered, designed and executed.