Imagine driving on a busy highway when suddenly, your vehicle breaks down. Unless you're equipped with the mechanical skills and tools to fix it yourself, you're entirely reliant on expert resources to get moving again. From an end-user perspective, the experience of waiting for assistance can be incredibly frustrating. It not only wastes time but also creates stress, disrupts the flow of the day, and potentially leads to costly delays. Similarly, in the realm of business IT, a poor IT presence can have a comparable impact on employees.
What would happen if your IT infrastructure was ill-supported and faulty, resulting in a breakdown? Would you know what to do to recover and get your employees and company on the road again?
IT is Influential
Your workforce is your biggest asset and is at the mercy of the IT system you have in place. Users feel the brunt of a system outage, a slow network, or applications that can be frustrating. If work stalls, management can lose patience quickly.
Freshworks, a business software company, reports that the top two complaints regarding user experience within workplace IT are slow speeds (51%) and extended response times from the IT support team (34%). User friendly technology is a key contributor to employee satisfaction, and 71% of global business leaders interviewed reported that ‘employees will consider looking for a new employer if their current job does not provide access to the tools, technology, or information they need to do their jobs well.’ Employees report that inadequate workplace technology causes them to feel stressed, with 48% of those interviewed, citing negative impacts to their mental health.
A report posted by Zipdo, a collaborative software creation company explains that ‘companies that invest in employee technology report an annual revenue growth rate of 7.8% on average.’ ‘76% of business owners think technology increases employee productivity.’ Nearly 30% of the people interviewed voiced to believing that their workplace falls short in delivering the level of technology needed for them to be productive.
Enlisting the expertise of a remote IT service desk is an effective solution in providing reliability, timeliness, and efficiency. Having professionally trained staff with the expertise and knowledge to resolve issues quickly and accurately is vital. Partnering with an IT provider who delivers quality, dedicated customer service can help employees feel supported, impacting the productivity of your entire company in a positive way.
It is important that your workforce feels heard and supported by their IT presence. To encourage this, the service desk environment must involve:
- Solid communication - Information exchange is vital and depends on both the technician providing the assistance and the environment from which they are working. Having a noisy workspace, with an inadequate headset, for example, may result in poor audio quality, frustrating the end user. A technician who seems distracted or is less than communicative regarding the issue at hand may escalate an already stressful moment, reflecting in a poor user experience.
- Readiness and availability - Remote is the new work motto and signifies anytime and anywhere support. A 24/7/365 model is critical for more businesses than ever before.
- Timeliness - An IT team is one of investigative troubleshooting and their work needs to happen quickly. End users are at a halt until their issue is resolved. Technicians need to react as if their own productivity is stalled. They must approach their service from an internal level of understanding.
- Courtesy and empathy - Feeling heard and understood is at the core of what customer service promotes, and the service desk is a customer-oriented entity. IT personnel must understand the stress and inconvenience the end user is experiencing. Technicians require an innate sense of empathy alongside encouragement and positivity.
Remote Services Provide Benefits
When IT isn’t the core function of a company, partnering with an expert service provider offers a solid solution with several benefits and advantages including:
- Convenience for the end-user: Your workers can remain at their desks while the technician performs the task or service remotely.
- Employee interaction: Your employees engage in conversation with the tech and feel involved in the process, learning tips and tricks for improved maneuverability.
- Extended service hours: Remote IT technicians are available beyond normal work hours and within multiple time zones to assist someone working early, late, or in another location.
- Metrics and monitoring: Your IT partner utilizes metrics to monitor multiple aspects of the remote system, providing you with knowledge regarding areas of improvement.
- Preemptive approach: Issues and trends are documented and tracked, allowing for preventative measures and the opportunity to fix things before they get worse or fail.
- Access to resources and knowledge: Enlisting the help and guidance of an IT services provider immediately gives your business access to years of tenure and experience within the IT realm. From storage solutions to cybersecurity, your IT department will have continued resources for you and your team.
- Heightened security: Internal IT technicians are immediate problem-solvers. Businesses have a ‘bigger picture’ for their technological positioning, but initiatives and efforts often get overshadowed by the here and now. Enlisting a team of experts that covers the help desk tiers and possesses a strong knowledge base significantly enhances your business’s security and competitiveness.
- Decreased overhead: The elimination of hardware, workspace, workers’ compensation payments, salaries, recruitment, and retention are just a few items removed from the budget in an outsourced relationship. Maintenance of licenses is also handled by the partner provider.
- Scalability: Remote services are flexible and allow for scaling up or down as your business dictates, making sure that your company is aligned in the best way possible.
- Various models: Remote IT comes in several shapes and sizes, and offers different aspects of support, timing, and cost. Onshore and offshore models are often compared for pricing and timing. Tiers offer support that is specific to the issue, and its level of intensity. Remote IT is a vessel for open resources with solutions that are tailored to your business.
Roadside Assistance
An effective IT support system is vital for your overall business functionality – from managing infrastructure and user issues to the overall attitude and productivity of your employees. It allows a company to focus on its core business and achieve its goals more efficiently and effectively.
Rather than being stuck on the side of the road waiting for help to arrive (and potentially without all the needed tools), a remote IT service desk can help your business remain productive. If an IT setback occurs, your employees know to make one call, and they will get the help and support they need, no matter where they are or when they need it.
Learn more about our services and how Cayuse can help your business with its IT presence.