When assessing the quality of a company's hardware support programs, ask them to describe their typical response times for various scenarios that might develop in your office, such as printer problems, back-up unit issues and network shutdowns.

Vendor response time can be critical. For example, if your network goes down, and you use an application with appointment scheduling, you'll need help right away.

Most vendors will use a "triage" approach, as follows:

�        Problems with printers, back-up units, or downed network terminals should elicit a response within 4 to 8 hours.

�        Full network failure should warrant a response in no more than an hour. (We're currently working with a vendor whose head technician's pager interfaces with all of their clients' servers. It automatically pages him in the event of a crash. The technician is required to stop all other tasks and respond immediately to the emergency.)