“Premier iT takes it to an even more professional level. The fact that we stay with them is a sign that they do good work. They care of our IT issues and that’s why we use them.”
Family owned and operated Northland Fire Protection Equipment company has been providing fire safety services and equipment for residential properties and commercial businesses since 2012. Pete Conrad, Operations Manager, described how he and Kevin Benz the owner of Northland Fire started the company, “we worked together night and day, just Kevin and myself, growing it from a real small ground floor operation in a house – to the business it is today.” Northland Fire now has three commercial locations, servicing clients in Northern Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, Central Eastern Minnesota, and the Greater Twin Cities metro area.
Premier iT has provided IT support to Northland Fire almost ever since they opened their doors in 2012. The IT support has included implementation of PC replacements, network troubleshooting, and printer connectivity stabilization. Pete Conrad described the Premier iT team as always having, “our best interest in mind.” When speaking of its owner, Alan Altepeter, Pete said, “he is so knowledgeable about how things work. Basically anything we request – he can do.” Pete said that what he really appreciates about Alan in particular is that he is experienced enough to say, “ ‘Hey I understand that that’s what you are asking but I am going to recommend that you go in another direction.’ Alan gives us options of what he thinks would be a better fit for us, but ultimately he lets us know, ‘Hey YOU are the decider.’ ”
Previous to working with Premier iT, Northland Fire had an in-house IT consultant. Pete said of working with the IT consultant, “the other guy was regularly telling us, ‘Well I can’t do that until you do the next step’ or ‘I can’t come over to fix that. I’m busy I can’t.’ The in-house guy didn’t even want me around my computer while he was working on it.” Once when their internet was down for two weeks, Pete said he took a recommendation from a colleague to call Alan. “Turns out the in-house guy was wrong about on his original diagnosis. Alan said, ‘We’ll fix you right up. We can get you up and running in about an hour,’ and he did, and it was perfect.”
Running a small business takes dedicated, flexible, and dependable support, which Pete says Premier iT consistently provides. “One time our network was attacked. I immediately unplugged my computer from the wall, but I knew that something bad had happened. I think it was 2-3 hours later… Premier iT had been here, they had taken care of it, and they had prevented any further damage to our network. Alan has got our computers to a very secure level now.” Pete also commended Premier iT for how conscientious they are of both their customers’ time and bottom-line. “They are really good about knowing that I have some technical abilities so I may want to do it myself – and not have to pay for their time. If I am like, ‘Hey can you tell me how to do this?’ ‘Absolutely!’ and they will walk me through it or if I don’t have time to learn it – they take care of it. So it’s all good.”
“I think that this world can tend to cater to big dollars. I feel like we are a smaller market business, but Alan and the guys at Premier iT never make me feel like they’re rushing out of here to go take care of a bigger client. I really appreciate that.”