How to find reliable on-demand onsite IT support
Relying on a mix of random contractors for occasional onsite IT help leads to wildly inconsistent service quality, unfamiliar technicians, and unexpected extra charges. This makes it nearly impossible to get reliable "hands and feet" support across multiple offices without constantly dealing with mixed results and inflated costs.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Using a mix of different local vendors for occasional onsite supportDid this help you?
- 2Sending someone traveling in from another city or countryDid this help you?
- 3making a list of complaints about the old provider and shopping aroundDid this help you?
- 4investing in professional training to manage endpoints internally instead of using an MSPDid this help you?
- 5Looking for local MSPs or VARs that sell on-site serviceDid this help you?
- 6Using a temp agency to bring on someone competent for a short durationDid this help you?
- 7Partnering with a 'hands and eyes' or field-services dispatch serviceDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“We've been using a mix of different vendors for the occasional onsite support we need (desktop issues, hardware swaps, meeting room/AV problems, etc.), but we've had pretty mixed results.”source ↗
“Sometimes the person is great, sometimes we're dealing with someone traveling in from another city or country who isn't very familiar with the environment.”source ↗
“I'm trying to figure out if there's a better way to handle this — ideally a company that can provide reliable onsite "hands and feet" support when we need someone physically in an office, rather than finding a different contractor for each job.”source ↗
“They still piled on extra charges under the guise of out of scope support (which it was, technically, but that doesn't mean not expensive), and their support was still very much "best effort,"”source ↗
“I have yet to meet an MSP that lives up to its hype. Sorry, i got nothing.”source ↗
“MDMs, MMS, I don't need an annual engagement, I have a single project task to that needs to be completed.”source ↗
“I need to get a new version of a 3rd party app installed on devices and no way to automate a push out/update to these devices.”source ↗
“I can't find them in a fog of MDM and MMS advertisements.”source ↗
“when I talked to MSPs their 'solution' was "we'll install an MDM and manage it for you annually" and had no interest in a single engagement.”source ↗
Where this came up
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