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Many organisations run their network with a managed service provider, an internal team or a hybrid of the two. When the managed side falls short, the same complaints come up again and again. In this blog, we'll look at the pain points customers raise with us most often, what to look for in a provider, and how a good managed service avoids each one.
Proactive Support: How Do You Catch Problems Before Users Do?
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Reactive support, where things get fixed only after someone complains, is one of the most common frustrations we hear. A good managed service watches for the early signs instead: a circuit heading towards capacity, an unusual shift in traffic or a device behaving differently, and acts before it turns into downtime.
In our managed services, Highlight does much of that watching. Its capacity forecasting uses historical traffic to predict when a circuit will run out of headroom, and its anomaly detection picks up abrupt shifts in traffic or performance that don't fit the usual pattern. Enhanced observability through Highlight is part of the Advanced tier and above.
When the cause might sit outside your network, ThousandEyes can be added for visibility of internet, cloud and SaaS paths.
Proactive also means lifecycle work: tracking software currency and end-of-life milestones, and testing new releases before they reach production. When you assess a provider, ask what they told you about last month before you noticed it yourself.
Communication: What Should You Expect to See?
Customers often tell us they felt left in the dark: unsure of the network's status, surprised by maintenance or hearing about a problem from their own users first. That erodes trust quickly. A good provider makes the state of your service visible without you having to ask for it.
Our view has always been that limited information is better than no information. An early 'we're on it' during an incident is worth more than a polished report the next day.
In practice, that means a customer portal where you log and track requests, see planned changes and maintenance windows, and find reports and root-cause analyses, plus Highlight's live dashboard of device health and open incidents. Regular service reviews then cover performance, incidents, changes, capacity and your roadmap.
Growth: Will the Service Scale and Flex With You?
Networks change quickly as businesses grow and vendors add features; Meraki is a good example, with new capabilities arriving all the time. Some providers struggle to keep up, leaving bottlenecks, unsupported features and a service that no longer fits. Look for a service designed to grow in steps.
Ours is structured so you can grow without renegotiating from scratch. You add service domains as your estate expands and step up through the tiers as your risk profile changes, without losing anything you already had.
Flexibility also means not taking control away. Ours is a co-managed model, so your admins keep their rights and can carry on making changes themselves. We're there to augment your people and take the network further, not to lock anyone out.
Behind that sits an engineering-led team who also design and integrate Cisco and Meraki networks, so new features are understood before they're switched on, not after.
Security: Is It Part of Everyday Operations?
Security often takes a back seat to day-to-day operational problems, and customers worry about outdated configurations, thin monitoring and slow responses to incidents. A good managed service treats security as part of normal operations, not a separate project that happens when someone finds the time.
Our Advanced tier includes security-aware operations, and the security-focused domains go further. With Meraki Security and SD-WAN, a security event on your MX lands in our service desk, where an engineer triages it and deals with it. Security Service Edge covers Cisco Umbrella, Cisco Secure Access and Cisco Secure Connect, and Cisco ISE keeps identity-based access policy, certificates and software current.
Our own house is in order too: IPTel is ISO 27001 accredited.
Hidden Fees: How Do You Keep Costs Predictable?
Feeling that you're paying too much, or being caught out by charges you didn't expect, is a common source of tension. Hidden fees usually come from a vague scope. The fix is clarity up front: what's covered, at what level of cover, and how anything outside that is handled before the work begins.
We scope every agreement by service domain and tier, so it's clear what we manage and what each tier includes. Advanced and Critical include a monthly allowance of simple changes, and larger, more complex pieces of work are scoped as projects so you know where you stand before work starts.
Cost depends on scope and tier, so there's no one-size price. Our free 10-minute Build Your Business Case assessment takes you through a few questions, then suggests a tier and estimates what's at stake for your network: a useful starting point for your own budget conversation.
Pro-Tip: When comparing proposals, ask each provider to walk through three real requests from your past year, such as a firmware upgrade, a new site and an after-hours outage, and explain how each would be handled and charged. The differences show up quickly.
Managed Service Pain Points: FAQs
What Are the Most Common Managed Service Complaints?
Reactive rather than proactive support, poor communication, services that don't scale, security that takes a back seat, unexpected fees and contracts that leave no room for the internal team.
What Does Proactive Support Look Like?
Monitoring that spots early warning signs such as capacity trends and unusual traffic, lifecycle management that keeps software current, and regular reporting on what was found and done.
How Can I Avoid Hidden Fees?
Agree the scope up front, including which parts of the network are covered, the level of cover and how larger pieces of work are handled, and check how out-of-scope requests are charged.
Can a Managed Service Work Alongside My Internal Team?
Yes. In a co-managed arrangement your team keeps its access and its say, and continues to make its own changes, while the provider looks after monitoring, escalations and the jobs your team has agreed to pass over.
Managed Service Pain Points: Summary
Most managed service frustrations come down to a few things: support that waits for problems, silence when you need information, a service that can't grow with you, security left until later and costs you didn't expect. A good managed service answers each one with proactive monitoring, visible communication, tiers that step up, security built into operations and a clear scope from day one.
Need Help With Managed Services?
If any of these pain points sound familiar, our free 10-minute Build Your Business Case assessment is a good place to start. You can also read more about our managed services, make an enquiry or email sales@iptel.com.au. We'd like to hear about your experience, so if that's useful, get in touch with the IPTel team.