Reducing Costs and Improving Service with Remote Support

Lisa Erickson-Harris, Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates:
So, how can you get the root cause quickly? As I said, there are some technologies that can help you get there. And three key technologies that can help you is to have other operational management technologies in place that have correlation and root cause tools. Generally, those systems help a lot but don't necessarily get to the exact problem, particularly when you're talking about a user sitting at a desktop having some issue that might be unique to them. You have knowledge management systems where you can search and narrow down resolution to issues that are ... help to be supportive of the situation. And then, you have remote control.

So, you're sitting there. You are the service desk analyst. What do you do? You need to get as close to the problem as possible. And what remote control will help you to do is to avoid a number of different things that can increase some of those times that we were talking about. It can help you to avoid time that's required to dispatch a technician. So, somebody doesn't have to pack up their bags, drive somewhere, walk across the campus of the organization that you work at and extend that time.

It can give you a connection to a desktop, and even other systems, depending upon which solution that you're using, so that you can see. As a service desk technician, you're listening to a user. Whether they're experienced or not, there's their communication, your communication, your styles, and you're trying to understand the situation. If you can't see it, there's often opportunity for communication to extend those times. And that's where remote control solutions can help you. They also create an auto-trail of activity. Some do. All of them don't. As I said, they eliminate the time-consuming communication, and having that picture of what's going on is worth a lot of time savings in this sort of environment.