How to evaluate, or replace, an MSP.
Most companies choose an IT provider three times before they get it right. This guide is the shortcut: what to ask, what the answers mean, and how to switch without breaking anything.
Bring your shortlist. We will tell you what to ask each one, including us.
Twelve questions that expose a weak provider.
A good MSP can name who owns your outcomes, tells you exactly what is not included in the monthly price, hands over documentation and credentials without a fight, and talks about your business before your firewall. A weak one closes tickets, stacks award badges, and gets vague about scope. Ask these in the sales meeting, in this order. The wording of the answer matters more than the answer.
1. “Who, by name, owns our account, and what is their tenure with you?”
A rotating queue of anonymous techs is the number one complaint buyers report after signing.
2. “What is NOT included in the monthly price?”
The single most important question. Vague answers here become surprise invoices later. A serious provider answers in one breath: hardware, travel, projects, and what else.
3. “Show me your last three out-of-scope invoices to clients like us.”
This is where nickel-and-diming hides. Refusal to discuss is your answer.
4. “Walk me through your last security incident and what you told the client.”
Everyone has had one. What you are testing is honesty and communication under pressure.
5. “Do you outsource or offshore your help desk or engineering?”
Not automatically bad, but you should hear it from them, not discover it later.
6. “Pull five closed tickets and tell me whether the cause was fixed or the symptom cleared.”
A provider that measures only ticket closure runs a queue, not an operation.
7. “Who owns our documentation and credentials, and what happens to them if we leave?”
The only acceptable answer: you own everything, handed over completely, no conditions. Provider-held credentials are a hostage situation waiting to happen.
8. “What do you need from US to do your job?”
A provider that asks nothing of you, no standards, no access decisions, no executive time, is planning to be a vendor, not an owner.
9. “How will you support our sites and field locations, specifically?”
Multi-site is where generalist MSPs quietly fail. Ask for their site-launch process.
10. “What does your quarterly business review contain?”
If the answer is ticket counts, that is an activity report, not a business review. You want risks, recommendations, budget, and a roadmap.
11. “What are your contract length, exit terms, and offboarding process?”
Long lock-ins with punitive exits signal a provider that retains clients with contracts instead of performance.
12. “Which clients like us can we call?”
Similar size, similar operational shape. A provider serving 75–500-person multi-site companies should produce these instantly.
Five clauses that tell you how the relationship will end.
Read the agreement before the proposal. The terms say more about a provider than the pitch does.
“All-inclusive” with an undefined out-of-scope clause
The two cannot coexist. One of them is the real contract.
Auto-renewal with a narrow cancellation window
Buried in the terms, timed so you miss it.
The provider owns your documentation, credentials or licensing
Admin credentials, documentation and licensing agreements for your environment belong in your name.
No written response commitments, or no remedy when missed
A commitment with no consequence is a marketing line, not a term.
Offboarding billed at premium rates, or not defined at all
If leaving is expensive or undocumented, that is the retention strategy.
A phased plan, run while the incumbent is still under contract.
Fear of a painful transition keeps companies with bad providers for years. A competent incoming provider removes that fear with a plan like this one, and volunteers it before you ask.
Review and inventory
Environment review, access inventory, documentation audit. You learn what the incumbent actually controls.
Parallel access
Parallel access established, credentials recovered and rotated, backups verified independently. Nothing user-facing changes yet.
Support cutover
Both providers overlap so no ticket falls in the gap. Employees get one announcement and one new contact route.
Stabilization
Urgent gaps fixed, environment documented, standards set. Only then does improvement work begin.
The test of the incoming provider is whether they volunteer this plan before you ask.
Ironguard’s version of it is the first two phases of how we work, and the 30-minute conversation that starts it is free, because we learn as much from it as you do.
Tell us what needs an owner.
What is growing, what is breaking, and where you keep chasing answers across vendors. We will start there.
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