When engaging with a managed IT service provider, customers need to know what they are paying for with contracts that clearly spell out each installed product, feature, and support item or service they are purchasing.
IT departments should also seek out vendors that bear the cost of providing an initial assessment of their needs. The bid should itemize the costs for equipment and support. The vendor should anticipate future upgrade paths in order to provide transparency related to future expenses. In this way, a customer knows their initial, ongoing, and upgrade costs and can budget accordingly.
“Pricing transparency was a big factor in our telecom system purchase decision,” said Brett Stephen, Director of Information Systems at Heart Care Centers of Illinois, a 5-center network of cardiovascular clinics, who selected BTI as their telecom partner. “In 14 years of BTI supporting our telecom needs, we have not once been surprised by pricing even as we have upgraded features and added reporting tools.”