Computer Support for Berkshire

Technical support is provided to your business IT requirements, either directly by us, or through a partner who is more readily equipped to deal with a specific type of software or hardware, and sometimes by the software or hardware provider themselves. mobile phones, tablets & software/computers.

In general, technical support services address specific problems with a product or service rather than the provision of training, customization, or other support services. Most companies offer technical support for the products they sell, either freely available or for a fee.

Technical support may be delivered over by e-mail, live support software on a website, or a tool where users can log a call or incident. Larger organizations frequently have internal technical support available to their staff for computer-related problems. The Internet can also be a good source for freely available tech support, where experienced users help users find solutions to their problems.

In addition, some fee-based service companies charge for premium technical support services.

System Build and configuration

You need the most efficient computer to meet all of your business needs, and your business has evolved in a certain way, with a certain, bespoke functionality. It may be worth having a computer custom-built rather than just throwing money at an off-the-shelf solution that might not fit requirements. A custom built computer or server is designed from the ground up with capability and environment in mind. This allows the end user to choose what features matter most to an organisation, rather than relying on a pre-made manufacturer model. If you were a graphic designer and need large amounts of RAM to render large Photoshop files, you might build a PC based entirely on graphics performance. If you were buying PCs for a library, you might desire that the computers run extremely quietly or have touch-screen functionality. We can build and configure PCs or servers to requirement to meet with any specification. Our support for new equipment includes full preparation of all the hardware and software to be sure you hit the ground running. Our specialist will make certain that the new machine is fully functional and that the user can access what they need on the day. All data from the old machine will be backed up, and selectively transfered to the best storage locations on any new system.

Coverage of support

We respond to all requests for assistance and evaluate the urgency of each. Most problems can be corrected remotely, others by visiting your offices. Visits apply to hardware replacements, software installation, upgrades, or changes in configuration. In more complex cases, we may consult with the supplier or manufacturer or other technical specialists to diagnose the problem and determine its cause. If extensive or specialised hardware repairs are required or a complete re-installation of the computer software is necessary, the machine may be brought to the sircles offices' for repairs. In some cases, where the computer will be unavailable for a longer period, a temporary replacement may be provided. Although we endeavour to keep everything consistent for our users, the replacement may not be the exact same make/model, but will perform the basic functions.

Technical support will be delivered via different technologies depending on the situation, ie. direct questions can be addressed by phone, SMS, On-line chat, IT support forums or E-mail.

Our support packages come in various flavours to suit different types of company or individual. Our offerings can be found at the bottom of this page so please feel free to email or call regarding any questions you may have.

Outsourcing Technical Support to us

With the increasing use of technology, there is a growing requirement to provide IT support. Many organizations locate their technical support departments or call centers in countries or regions with lower costs. Dell was amongst the first companies to outsource their technical support and customer service departments to India in 2001. There has also been a growth in companies specialising in providing technical support to other organizations. These are often referred to as MSP's (Managed Service Providers). For businesses needing to provide technical support, outsourcing allows them to maintain a high availability of service. Such need may result from peaks in call volumes during the day, periods of high activity due to introduction of new products or updates, or the requirement to provide customers with a high level of service at a low cost to the business. For businesses requiring technical support assets, outsourcing enables their core employees to focus more on their work in order to maintain productivity. It also enables them to utilize specialised personnel whose technical knowledge base and experience may exceed the usual scope of the business, thus providing a higher level of technical support to employees. Our IT support team can react as a second or third line support desk to your internal staff to provide a multi-tiered arrangement so that the simplest problems can be solved on site whilst we tackle the more complex issues.

Remote Control IT Support

With the advent of softwares such as PC Anywhere and the original incarnations of WinFrame (later Windows Terminal Server and then Windows Remote Desktop Services) remote control support is now much more popular.

More recent services such as LogMeIn and TeamViewer bring this sort of remote control functionality to the home user, often for free, so long as the software is not used in a commercial environment.

Services such as logMeIn123.com allow IT support companies to offer web-based IT support via remote control services to anyone who is currently on-line which allows for any application level support so long as Internet connectivity is not being impacted upon.,/p>

Once a remote user has relieved control of their desktop to the support staff they can chat using instant chat, share control of th screen and record the session for later reference by the user so that they can see how the problem was resolved.

Remote control support increases the reach and speed of response of a support team dramatically, and as such we are always keen to explore options for remote control in any situation before deploying a member of staff to site. This strategy is designed to save the end user time and the customer money, and so we ask that customers show patience when assisting us to connect to their device or computer as it is most certainly the most efficient way to get them back up and running.

Offices Moves and Relocations

When you are moving, either by appointing your staff to box up their desk themselves, or by having office move partners coordinate your move, we can help make sure you are on-track to be up-and-running before Monday morning. We can move your server-racks, desktop PCs, laptops, printers and relocate your core network to your new business premises. Your whole network will be tested prior to your staff arriving and we will remain on-hand throughout the morning to iron-out any unforeseen gremlins that have latched on to the network during the move. Before we leave, your computer network is signed-off as working just as it was prior to the move and any change requests that are made as a result of the move are dealt with as a priority to ensure that your staff are every bit as efficient as they were prior to relocation.

Printing and Scanners

Our support policy for printing is usually based in partnership with the printer manufacturer or a partner thereof. We do not carry stock of spare parts but can manage the support account with our printer-partners as requested. Printers are physical devices that process huge volumes of paper and are best kept under warranty rather than fixed on an ad-hoc basis.

Tablets and Other Hardware Devices

Support for tablet and other mobile devices is available for both SME and enterprise customers. In an SME the mobile phones tend to be unmonitored in most cases, with the email system having control to delete the device if it is lost or stoeln. In larger organisations, phones will be constantly monitored and controlled (including being locked down to only install certain apps) so that system security is not compromised. This means that support for SMEs is primarily provided via phone or in person and for by remote control for larger customers.

In general, most tasks on the iPhone or iPad that concern our business support ethic are concentrated around access to Microsoft Exchange Server or on-line CRM etc. which simply involves making sure that the sircles iPhone Exchange Server connection settings have been properly set. Android, Apple and Windows tablets are all supported to be connected to the sircles on-line services. These services include access to email, CRM, remote desktop and remote applications.

Some other applications such as the Apple corporate deployment softwares allow for various single-sing-on capabilities for phones and tablets signing onto your corporate network. Other softwares such as WMWare Airwatch allow for complete enterprise mobile management from around £5.00 per device per month to keep all your devices under more comprehensive control.

Repairs and Upgrades

As your computer becomes older compared to the latest model, one of which seems to appear every other day, the requirements on that aging computer increase because software written for the latest models requires more and more processing power and memory etc. Because of this it is often important to upgrade computers just as we upgrade our phones

• Add more RAM (Random Access Memory) which essentially the short-term memory where a computer holds all of it's 'to do list' so it can think about more things at once without having to refer back to another source of information.
• Improve your graphics/display performance which is more essential for gaming computers and players in the modern world but can be because you wish to start video editing or performing graphical tasks.
• Add or upgrade an optical drive (DVD/Blu-ray) and although most media is available through the Internet these days, some users still prefer the reliability of a Blu-ray drive for great sound and video.
• Improve network connectivity for reasons such as streaming video or sharing large data sources across the Internet, network connectivity is just as important as your Internet connection in these cases.

More Upgrades

• Add a hard drive to store more data which is essentially the PCs own reference library, where the PC looks to find how to do things and refer back to older information.
• Increase processing power by upgrading a processor or CPU (Central Processing Unit) which may be a possibility, but in the modern age often a new machine is more viable as hardware is so much cheaper than it was twenty years ago.
• Replace hard disks for more performance, which nowadays means replacing system drives with solid state drives which essentially remove all the moving parts from a 'disk' and replace them with long-living (giving perhaps a year or two of use before starting to fail) semi-conductor RAM style storage that holds data for a limited number of writes before slowing down.
• Upgrade to a newer operating system (e.g. Windows 7 to Windows 10) to increase functionality, performance or capability and keep your system up-to-date with new websites and features.

If you have encountered problems with any of the above components, it may be that they need to be repaired or replaced. Generally, a part is only repaired if the cost of repairing is significantly less than the cost of upgrading the component.