According to Statista, nearly a third

[Rakhiraqsdiwseo]

Why Technical Support for Remote Users Requires a Non-Standard Approach
10.10.2024
Mary Shacklett, president of the consulting company Transworld Data, talks to InformationWeek about how the approach of the IT service changes when it has to provide technical support to remote employees.

of full-time employees in finance, professional services, and tech work remotely in 2023. That’s not counting the many companies that regularly allow employees to work from home or remote offices on an intermittent basis. Remote work has changed the way tech support is provided, with IT now having to support a group of users it rarely or never sees.

In the application space, what was once a question about an internal system may now be about an external application hosted in the cloud. In the networking space, what was once a simple setup and configuration of a workstation, printer, or mobile device in a user's department now becomes the installation and management of configurations, security, devices, and functionality in remote locations.

“We’ve largely solved the problem of remote belize mobile database by automating software and security updates so that new versions of programs are automatically downloaded and installed for remote users without our presence,” an IT manager at a telecom company told me. “But the real pipe dream is the ability to do all IT support remotely, because it’s time-consuming and difficult to get staff to remote locations.”

Can you completely eliminate physical site visits? The answer today is no, no matter how good your automation is.

New systems, networks, and devices are emerging that require manual physical installation and on-site testing. Periodic maintenance is necessary to ensure that servers hidden in remote office closets are not covered in dust, are not operating in high temperatures or humidity, are not backed up regularly, and are not left unguarded during off-hours.

Despite this challenge, there are various steps that can be taken to improve, and in some cases change, the way remote support is provided.