We are all guilty of losing track of the last time we cleaned our printer jets or dusted our PC fans. Preventative maintenance is one of those tasks that quickly gets lost in the shuffle. When we get a new piece of hardware, we vow this time will be different, but it never is. Preventative maintenance will help us get the most out of our capital investments. Let’s make those dollars stretch as long as they can.
Why Do I Need Preventative Maintenance?
Because we rely on our IT hardware to work when we need it. When it fails, there are costs that we incur – costs to repair, costs to replace, down time, wasted staff time, poor customer experience to name a few. Without proactively caring for your machines, you are more likely to experience unexpected down time and shorter equipment life. Unless you have a money tree stashed away, these aren’t costs a business can dismiss. Protecting your investments and keeping your IT hardware up and running is critical to your bottom line.
What Is Preventative Maintenance?
The exact details of a maintenance service call will vary with the type and model of machine being serviced. There are some commonalities across machines, including updating drivers and cleaning out dust and debris. For servers, it means examining data usage, checking backups, and cleaning up user accounts. For PCs, it means cleaning up hard drives, ensuring back ups are in order, scanning for viruses. For printers, most require new parts such as transfer rollers, fusing assemblies, and feed rollers on a periodic basis. Preventative maintenance handles all of these functions.
When Do I Need Preventative Maintenance?
Each machine has its own schedule. That makes regular maintenance even more complex. I can assure you that regular maintenance should be done more than you’re doing it now. You expect your laptops and printers to work when you need them, and without fail. But we are hard on our IT and often don’t follow the recommended guidelines for maintaining them. They are often operating at decreased function due to this lack of attention. This means we are losing bits of time here and there as processing slows and we may not even notice it. All those bits of time start to add up. Hiring an IT repair expert can free you from the burdens of this daunting task.
Who Can Help Me with Preventative Maintenance?
Those with in-house IT departments rely on their staff to handle these tasks. But, could your IT staff create more value by focusing on forward-thinking IT projects to help grow your business over putting out fires? The answer is yes.
If you are an SMB and are handling your printer and server maintenance yourself, stop wasting your time! There are IT maintenance and repair companies that can do it for you. Whether you sign on for contract maintenance or buy time in blocks, there are options for you. Maintenance services can save money in the long run because a skilled technician should be able to spot any glaring problems and correct them before the machine becomes unusable – a circumstance that will interfere with workflow and therefore, with the SMB’s bottom line.
Great Lakes Computer Corporation specializes in IT hardware repair and maintenance. We can repair your servers, printers, PCs, and POS Systems. GLC uses only Original Equipment Manufacture (OEM) parts and trained / certified computer repair technicians.
We offer multiple “levels” of IT service types, coverage types, and service levels. This program can be “customer designed” to meet any requirement and provides for complete coverage against equipment hardware failures.