At the risk of looking like I'm giving a plug, I'm going to go ahead and post this.
Desktop Streaming and ePeople are two players in this space; I happen to be a developer at a third with a much stronger product: Control-F1 (www.control-f1.com), which, along with my previous help desk experiences, gives me a slightly different perspective on this issue.
Admittedly, remote support isn't the solution to every support problem: users who have unplugged their machine, or can't figure out to to login, for instance, obviously require a different method.
Also admittedly, a lot of the solutions out there (like Desktop Streaming) are remote control oriented, and this brings up a host of security issues. Our solution, however, also adds a suite of diagnostic tools to the equation, as well as integrated security.
For starters, users request support by visiting a support portal; that solves the social engineering issue. Secondly, the user has a complete host of security settings at their control, and the help desk administrator can set a default for those settings; anything from 'anything goes' to 'prompt me before you can look at my hard drive'. This also goes into a lot of other options, but I'm not trying to do a plug here so I'll lay off.
As for the phone support vs. web support issue: people like to talk on the phone. Some people won't do it any other way. But remote support has a place here, too, at least in the diagnostic tools realm. For example, one of our tools allows you to setup and save templates for getting data from a machine, instead of walking a user through it. That saves a lot of time, which translates into both ROI and happier, less frustrated technicians.
Then you have the issue of fixing things for users instead of showing them. Remote support has solutions in this realm too; remote control can let you quickly train a user on a task without a long, frustrating, and (for the user) humiliating attempt at doing it w/o the benefit of visuals.
Auditing? Tech's screwing up? Everything is logged, so yes, if an incompetent technician (or a comptent one who makes a mistake) screws something up, the finger points at them. The benefit though, is that instead of having to point at the customer and hope no one finds out, you have an audit trail to reverse most mistakes you made, instead of having to guess at what they might have been.
There are lots of other benefits; check out our website, as Desktop Streaming and ePeople are only half of the solutions in this marketspace. But my essential point is that remote support is a viable tool. Good security and education make users comfortable with the idea, and that's available now. Strong diagnostic toolsets save technician time and frustration, and I know I would've killed for that. Web-based eSupport isn't going to kill the traditional help desk, but it's a great benefit.
Finally.. Thanks for all the great suggestions on how we can make our product more valuable.
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Desktop Streaming and ePeople are two players in this space; I happen to be a developer at a third with a much stronger product: Control-F1 (www.control-f1.com), which, along with my previous help desk experiences, gives me a slightly different perspective on this issue.
Admittedly, remote support isn't the solution to every support problem: users who have unplugged their machine, or can't figure out to to login, for instance, obviously require a different method.
Also admittedly, a lot of the solutions out there (like Desktop Streaming) are remote control oriented, and this brings up a host of security issues. Our solution, however, also adds a suite of diagnostic tools to the equation, as well as integrated security.
For starters, users request support by visiting a support portal; that solves the social engineering issue. Secondly, the user has a complete host of security settings at their control, and the help desk administrator can set a default for those settings; anything from 'anything goes' to 'prompt me before you can look at my hard drive'. This also goes into a lot of other options, but I'm not trying to do a plug here so I'll lay off.
As for the phone support vs. web support issue: people like to talk on the phone. Some people won't do it any other way. But remote support has a place here, too, at least in the diagnostic tools realm. For example, one of our tools allows you to setup and save templates for getting data from a machine, instead of walking a user through it. That saves a lot of time, which translates into both ROI and happier, less frustrated technicians.
Then you have the issue of fixing things for users instead of showing them. Remote support has solutions in this realm too; remote control can let you quickly train a user on a task without a long, frustrating, and (for the user) humiliating attempt at doing it w/o the benefit of visuals.
Auditing? Tech's screwing up? Everything is logged, so yes, if an incompetent technician (or a comptent one who makes a mistake) screws something up, the finger points at them. The benefit though, is that instead of having to point at the customer and hope no one finds out, you have an audit trail to reverse most mistakes you made, instead of having to guess at what they might have been.
There are lots of other benefits; check out our website, as Desktop Streaming and ePeople are only half of the solutions in this marketspace. But my essential point is that remote support is a viable tool. Good security and education make users comfortable with the idea, and that's available now. Strong diagnostic toolsets save technician time and frustration, and I know I would've killed for that. Web-based eSupport isn't going to kill the traditional help desk, but it's a great benefit.
Finally.. Thanks for all the great suggestions on how we can make our product more valuable.