support

Many businesses are faced with challenges to their existing model of technology support which could be solved by creative and innovative uses of current technology.

Currently, most businesses fund contract desktop support technicians who provide support during traditional business hours (9am – 5pm M-F). The desktop support technicians respond to minor trouble tickets delivered via email, and solve traditional desktop support issues by visiting desktops and working to close the tickets on a problem by problem basis. This type of interaction is specifically NOT beneficial to the company in four distinct ways:

First: The responding desktop tech generally responds in a rote manner to similar requests without improving or developing new processes, or providing any beneficial documentation to resolve future similar or identical issues (the cost to the company to resolve the same issue never really diminishes).

Second: The desktop support tech also rarely learns about the processes of the staff member whom they are assisting, and rarely has insight or input into how they might improve the underlying technology or non-technological process. This typical type of rote, unimaginative support role also tends to attract technicians who are not innovative or informed, or it attracts them for a short period of time and then they find more creative and enlightening roles elsewhere.

Third: The support interaction also does not provide any long-term benefit to the staff experiencing the problem. The staff member who experiences a technical problem does not generally learn what action may have caused the issue, nor do they learn the appropriate steps to resolve future issues, or discover any fundamental structures or lessons which might benefit their performance or tenure as an employee of the company.

Fourth: The same technical problem costs the company the time and money in lost productivity to staff and technician as many times as it reoccurs. There is additional cost in travel time for the technician to get to the site of the problem, and additional lost productivity as the employee waits for his or her technical issue to be resolved. The lost productivity is especially acute for businesses who operate in non-traditional hours of operation, compared to the traditional hours of operation of the technical support staff (and its entirely internal library of knowledge).
 
Active Matrix Networks would like to propose a significant change to the way that businesses conducts their desktop support interactions.

A more beneficial approach would be to integrate training and interactive aspects into the desktop support experience. If the support interaction were richer in information, the technician could do more to deliver solutions which met the specific needs of the customer, the technician attracted to such a role would be more advantageous to the company, the customer (staff) might receive a valuable lesson about the software or hardware system that they interact with, and the company could build a library of knowledge with which staff could be educated and therefore lower the likelihood for reoccurrence of a technical issue.

This more meaningful experience could be delivered using a combination of existing technologies.

1. Telephone support combined with remote assistance. The technician could respond in a timely manner to issues in the comfort of his or her own home or office. He could receive a technical support ticket and respond to the request by calling the requesting staff and guiding them through/demonstrating the solution on their own PC, and by sending them a “support lesson” via email which the staff member could use to gain additional insights into appropriate use of the particular system, or a reinforcement of the solution just experienced.

2. Systems and process documentation and demonstration. During times when the technician is not engaged in a support activity, he could be preparing the “support lessons” which would be stored in a searchable online course management system for easy location and retrieval.

3. During times when a technician cannot be available to respond to a desktop support request, the online database of “support lessons” would be available to staff to learn from. These might help staff solve issues without requiring the intervention of a technician. Staff may even choose to use these lessons to supplement their job performance, and they might even be instructed to complete “support lessons” related to their job activities. Through the framework of a course management system, successful completion of a “support lesson” could be tied to job performance and possible job benefits.