Technology enables us to do what we need to do with the minimum of effort. It also allows us to be flexible, work anywhere and at any time. But if you don’t use a traditional office 9-5 model how can you ensure your systems are supported when you need them to be? By utilizing remote support.
Remote IT support was once regarded as the poor man’s choice. It was seen as a second rate option for business who didn’t want to pay, or couldn’t afford IT support that visited the office and helped out in person. That all changed when more businesses embraced flexible working.
As soon as entrepreneurs and larger enterprises embraced cloud computing, flexible working and the agile business model, remote IT support suddenly became the way to get the support you need at a time and place you want, at a price you can afford. It is now regarded as the top tier of support for agile businesses.
Here are a couple of ways remote IT support enables the agile business.
Home and remote working
A traditional IT support contract would not fulfill the needs of any business who had remote or home workers. No IT company would agree to visiting people at home to resolve issues or meeting them at a roadside diner or at an airport. That’s where remote IT support comes in.
Depending on the vendor, this could be via live chat, telephone or a remote login. The worker and support tech can communicate and work together to remedy whatever the issue might be with the minimum of fuss. While more work needs to be done by the employee, the fact that they are supported wherever in the world they might be overcomes that in almost every instance.
Sufficient support for company IT resources
Being an agile business is not about allowing employees to use their own laptops for work and ignoring remote support altogether. For one, own devices may be compromised with malware, have viruses or be otherwise insecure. A responsible company provides the hardware and shares responsibility for its security and upkeep with the employee.
A work computer will still need encryption, antivirus, firewall, malware detection and all the protections they would use in the office. The only difference is that they won’t necessarily have access to an IT technician in house. That’s where remote IT support comes in. To ensure all work computers are locked down and secured enough to fulfill the requirements of clients and employer.
Cloud computing support
Agile businesses make best use of cloud computing to both lower costs but also embrace new ways of working. Products such as Office 365 enable employees to be productive anywhere but these systems don’t work in a bubble. Many cloud vendors will supply support, but it often won’t cover basic home networking or hardware expertise. You might be left entirely on your own.
Remote IT support can help here. Not only can it support your hardware, but can also be configured to support your home network, VPN, hardware, software and any other element of telecommuting. While not all of it is included as a default, personalized support contracts can be configured to include what you need it to include.
Supporting the agile business
As well as supporting users, remote IT support can help the business too. Employee management tools like Time card software or TimeClock is useful to manage remote workers. The software vendors themselves will support all aspects of their software but won’t necessarily cover getting it to work, getting it through your network and other issues that may arise.
Also, for those with employees in diverse areas where a typical 9-5 support model wouldn’t work, remote IT support is flexible enough to pick up the slack. Partner with the right company and you could potentially support your user all times of the day or night.
Agile business security
According to a recent piece by Business News Daily, security is the top IT concern for 91% of all small to medium sized businesses. Unfortunately, many of those same businesses do not want or cannot afford a dedicated IT department. While you can Google your way out of some basic computer issues, once you get more involved, so do the requirements to solve that issue.
Sometimes, only expert IT skills can fix a problem. If you have an IT support contract in place, you have the expertise on tap to ensure maximum productivity for the minimum, outlay.
Now let us be honest, there are things that remote support cannot fix but for those, pay-as-you-go onsite support can be worth its weight in gold. If you have a technology partner that could deliver both remote IT support and visit your main office when needed, that would be the perfect balance for the agile business.
It isn’t just agile businesses that could benefit. Smaller enterprises, new businesses and those without the resources or the need for dedicated IT support.
The evolution of IT support
From what was once regarded as second place, remote IT support has shown that it can evolve to meet the needs of an ever-changing workplace. As companies themselves are having to evolve to meet the needs of employees and new ways of working, IT companies have had to evolve to meet the needs of both parties.
Dave’s Computers is one of those companies. We have taken our traditional store-based and onsite IT support models and combined them into a remote IT support service that can support home users, small businesses, agile enterprises and any organization that doesn’t have its own IT department.
We’re not talking about cheap, low quality offshored remote support here though. We are talking, U.S.-based technicians in New Jersey. Native English speakers with real world experience in dealing with the huge range of IT problems the average user generates in their working lives. We don’t use scripts and get lost when you deviate. We have decades of experience supporting users from our Hillsborough base.
If you need remote support for Windows or Mac, hardware, software, networking or something else, contact us here at Dave’s Computers today. We are here to help!
