Daily support and monitoring
Ask how employees get help, how recurring problems are documented, and how monitoring or maintenance responsibilities are defined. Service quality depends on ownership and communication, not only ticket counts.
- Clarify the route for helpdesk, device, email, printing, and access requests.
- Ask how the provider identifies root causes and communicates next steps.
- Understand which tools or recurring services are separate from labor.
- Clarify normal support channels, urgency handling, coverage expectations, escalation paths, and who communicates with affected employees.
Security, backups, and employee changes
Access and recovery work should be treated as normal operating functions, not afterthoughts. The provider should explain its role, the client decisions it needs, and the evidence it will document.
- Ask how onboarding, offboarding, shared mailboxes, and permissions are coordinated.
- Review the approach to sign-in security, phishing concerns, device protection, backup monitoring, and restore planning.
- Confirm what needs to be decided by your management team versus what the provider can coordinate.
- Ask how a suspected account compromise, lost device, failed backup, or unavailable file would be communicated and escalated.
Projects, vendors, and pricing clarity
Property transitions and office changes often involve several vendors and a fixed date. Scope, ownership, outside costs, testing, and the post-project handoff should be visible before implementation.
- Ask how projects are scoped, documented, and communicated.
- Confirm who coordinates internet, phone, software, hardware, and other vendors.
- Request a clear distinction between hourly labor and recurring third-party software, security, backup, monitoring, licensing, or cloud costs.
- Confirm who owns the resulting documentation, account records, device inventory, vendor contacts, and unresolved decisions.
Questions to ask
Should every property management company buy the same IT package?+
No. The right support model depends on the people, properties, locations, technology environment, and internal capacity of the organization.
Can an IT provider work with internal IT?+
Yes. A provider can supply co-managed support, escalation capacity, project help, or defined operational coverage alongside an internal team.
What should a provider understand before proposing support?+
The provider should understand the people, roles, offices, properties, core applications, vendors, current pain points, internal capacity, security concerns, and upcoming operational changes.
