In an ever-evolving cyber landscape, it is critical that companies’ IT support meets the needs of the modern worker. In recent years, hybrid and remote work has become increasingly commonplace in a majority of businesses. We’ve swiftly witnessed the demise of the days when employees could simply drop by the desks of IT support staff for a solution to technical problems. These days the best solution for modern businesses is an effective remote IT support team for all workers.
But what are the right strategies needed for a successful remote support operation? How do you position your remote and hybrid employees for technical success? In the content below, we aim to address the modern challenges and solutions of today’s remote IT support.
Remote IT Support Should be Available 24 x 7
As an accompaniment to the adoption of hybrid and remote work, regular 9-5 office hours are no longer as commonplace as they once were. Companies seeking to attract and retain the best talent have begun to hire beyond their geographic regions and teams are increasingly becoming spread throughout several time zones.
As a result, remote support teams must adapt to meet the time requirements of their increasingly time-flexible employees. These days, 24 x 7 IT support is no longer just a convenience, it is a necessary function of businesses to guarantee maximum productivity. To operate effectively, employees must be equipped from a technical perspective to produce regardless of their time zone and hours of work. The best way to ensure this is by providing around-the-clock remote IT support.
Manage Your Remote IT Support Team in Verticals
If your IT support team manages more than one client, it is best practice to segment members of the team by industry vertical. Creating dedicated groups for specific industries will allow your support team to develop the expertise of industry niche needs. These skills are often times transferrable from one company to the next, as many in the same vertical will share similar organizational structures and software. These synergies can be applied to more than one customer which will allow for faster resolution times and more polished communication from the support team to the client.
If your Remote IT Support team supports only one company, this model can be scaled down by allocating specific IT support team members to unique departments in your company.
Department-specific remote support staff will also find synergies with multiple dedicated departmental employees and learn to speak the language of professionals dedicated to a unique space. The Result for your remote support team is better service and faster turnaround in resolution.
This tiered structure will also help in your escalation process. Having a dedicated team that possesses a fundamental understanding of the business needs of specific workers will allow for streamlined escalation and more effective communication. It will also improve the handover process of a solution to end-users.
Find the Most Effective Tools for Your Remote IT Support Team
As with most software purchases, you should take a critical look at your organization’s needs before committing to specific tools that empower your remote IT support team. It is important to decipher what the team will be supporting during their day-to-day, and the actions they’ll need to take to deliver quality resolutions for technical issues.
Consider that your team may be supporting cloud storage, OneDrive files, and security. Use this knowledge to narrow down the types of tools that will make management and collaboration attainable. For instance, it is more than likely they’ll need a notetaking app like Evernote or OneNote. Your remote support team will also need a tool that allows them to log into the devices of end-users. To accompany their support and deliver a personal experience, they’ll also require a tool that allows for seamless video conferencing.
Deliver a Robust Client-Facing Portal
Providing a robust client-facing portal is a must for remote support teams that desire to deliver a transparent and secure experience for end users. A strong portal will have dashboards clearly showing open and closed tickets, viewable for your support staff and key stakeholders.
Embrace Remote Access and Patch Automation
An additional important component of a successful remote support team is device health monitoring and over-the-air patching. By doing, teams are able to stay abreast of issues occurring in an environment and with endpoints.
Finding the Right Remote Connectivity Tool
To provide sufficient remote support, you’ll need a connectivity tool that is functional and easy to use. From experience, we’ve found that many of these tools tend to be tough to use and difficult to support.
One option is to get an RMM (remote monitoring and maintenance) tool. This type of tool not only allows for remoting, but also provides telemetry on devices in the field, and patching capabilities.
The other is to look at just a remote access tool. Some of these will require agents to be installed while others do not.
Regardless of your choice, make sure to try out several tools and involve users to get their thoughts on the experience.
Make Your Remote Support Team Accessible to All End-Users
It is important to offer a variety of methods that an employee can reach out to support. This includes phone support, support via video calls, email support, and even text support.
Employees feel varying levels of comfort when it comes to seeking technical solutions and offering a variety of methods to reach out is paramount in establishing a healthy discourse between remote support and employees.
For 24×7 support, we recommend setting installing a shortcut on the user’s desktops that opens a ticket like the one pictured. The shortcut should launch a short form for end-users to describe the nature and severity of their issue. This makes the process of issuing a ticket simple when an end-user is working on their machine and limits disruptions in productivity.
Empower Employees to know their technology
Offering a library of learning can be beneficial for many employees. Establishing a working knowledge base of answers for commonly asked questions will empower employees who choose so to find many of their own solutions to technical problems. As a result, your team may feel more comfortable using the technology available to them, which can have a positive impact on productivity.
Reduce Friction for End-User Employees
The ultimate goal of a remote IT team is to reduce friction in the day-to-day work lives of your employees whether they work on-site, in a hybrid capacity or remote. A strong remote support team understands the importance of this and should work to deliver an experience to match. At the end of the day, employees that feel empowered rather than frustrated by their technology are more productive and stronger assets to their company at large.
Contact us to learn more about Remote support
