How Your Company Can Reap the Benefits of Remote-Access IT Support

Traditional computer services have traditionally gone one of two ways: Firstly, companies and schools often have their own in-house IT department. The advantages of this are obvious. For one thing, being able to have qualified technicians physically inspect and evaluate a person's computer in a personable way is a useful function. The second option has traditionally been to call people in when a problem arises. This solution is good for problems that occur infrequently (due to not having to employ a full-time staff roster), but it isn't practical for a long-term strategy, as an increased hourly rate and wait time makes it infeasible for businesses that require constant and timely support. Fortunately, in the past decade or so, a new solution has cropped up: remote-access IT support.

By combining the immediacy of in-house support without the expense, remote-access IT support only needs to be obtained for the time that is used. This is a huge benefit. Paying for in-house IT support means you're paying them on a salary basis, not for each hour that they are actually working. It must be stressed, however, that remote-access IT support isn't always ideal, for the aforementioned reasons. To expand on this, students and teachers with laptops are going to be more comfortable with on-site technicians that they know and trust, not necessarily people who they have never met in real life. Furthermore, on-site technicians are also far more likely to understand the local network infrastructure.

Where remote-access IT support really hits its stride is for software situations that can easily be addressed via screen-sharing technology, and herein lies the crux. It used to be that phone support and email support were the only feasible forms of remote-access IT support. As you can imagine, both of these options were (and still are) plagued with problems. Email lacked immediacy, and even its live chat successor was only marginally better. Phone support was a little better, but not being able to see what was on the screen slowed the process down, making for a frustrating experience. But with the proliferation of broadband internet, the amount of screen-sharing support has skyrocketed.

Screen-sharing IT support means that your company can temporarily relinquish control to trusted support companies, and because they are often overseas and have cheaper overheads, your company can save thousands each year. If you'd rather spend a little more and employ local contractors, there is also an array of local remote-access IT support firms.

Contact a company like Phoenix IT to learn more about computer services and technology support options.