Red Flags
Some of our customers were in bad relationships with their technology systems, or previous providers. It wasn’t until we began working with them that they knew the warning signs to look for. Don’t feel bad! Technology is complicated, and it takes a long time to become experienced enough to know which questions to ask.
As a public service, we’ve compiled a list of observations you can check against your own experiences with your technology systems and provider. If some of these hit close to home, don’t worry – they’re all problems that other people have had, and they’re all problems that we’ve cured for our customers.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list……..
- You get into arguments with your I.T. provider over whether something is actually broken
- Someone at your company has had a ransomware (CryptoLocker) infection on their PC…
- …and you had to pay the ransom…
- …because you can’t restore from backups…
- …because you don’t have any backups.
- You’re reluctant to call on your provider when you need help…
- …because it costs money every time you call or they come out…
- …or because you’re unlikely to get the one person there who can fix things…
- …or both
- If a big storm came and hit your technology systems, your employees would be out of work for weeks
- Your network or internet is slow, and nobody knows why
- You have to reboot “the server” to get things working again
- You have a panic attack every time the power goes out
- You have PC’s running Windows XP…
- …and aren’t sure what the big deal is about upgrading…
- …because your provider hasn’t really mentioned it
- Your office runs on a Windows Small Business (SBS) server…
- …on version 2003…
- …and aren’t aware how frightening that is
- You get a lot of spam email…
- …that is, when the email server is working…
- The person who hosts your mail server also hosts your website…
- …and if you changed providers, your email could be gone forever…
- …which you hadn’t thought about until just now, and are having a panic attack
- You use a “Remote Desktop” for everything, even email…
- …even when you’re actually in the office…
- …from a regular PC…
- …and come to think of it, you don’t actually know where the remote server is
- You think it’s a little odd that your login “domain” or email “domain” domain doesn’t look anything like your company’s name
- Your company uses a mix of personal email accounts on Gmail, Yahoo, etc. for business purposes
- If your life depended on it, you wouldn’t be able to say which folders people could access on your server…
- …or when any given person changed any access permissions or security settings
- Your provider recycles login names and email addresses for your employees as they come and go
- We desperately wish this were a joke…real life, actually happened — ed.
- Your employees use a lot of thumb drives or external USB drives…
- …or seem to all have Dropbox / Box / etc. installed…
- …even though you have a server they’re supposed to be using for business files
- Your provider’s slogan seems to be “we can’t do that”…
- …or worse, “we can do it if you pay us more”
- You never change your password…
- …or you are constantly changing your password…
- …and the only way to remember it is a sticky note under your keyboard
- Your company WiFi still uses WEP encryption…
- …and a very simple security key…
- …or neither
- You have a Guest WiFi that doesn’t need a password…
- …and people who connect to it can reach anything on your company network…
- …and actually, you don’t know if they can or can’t…
- …or how far outside your building someone could still connect to it
While some of these items may seem humorous, they are realities that many of our customers were dealing with before we began to simplify and stabilize their technology systems. We hope that none of these red flags are flying in your company, but if they are, we hope you won’t hesitate to call us at 918-770-4099.
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