IT support is vital to the smooth running of hardware and software tools during business operations. It also ensures that servers remain operational and provides backup and recovery for data and applications.
Providing tech support is critical to meeting customer expectations. Having effective and secure IT support can help companies grow.
Service Level Agreements
A service level agreement (SLA) is an agreed-upon set of expectations between a customer and a vendor. It establishes metrics and measurements that are attainable within reasonable time frames, which can help both parties track performance over the lifetime of the contract. SLAs also define what happens when the established metrics are not met and include processes for resolving any issues.
It is important that the selected metrics reflect factors within the service provider’s reasonable control and can be easily measured. It’s also recommended to resist including too many metrics, as this can produce excessive data and be difficult to collect.
The SLA should include a description of the services that are offered and an outline of the processes involved in providing them. It should also describe any exclusions, such as maintenance services. Finally, it should define the reporting structure and tracking intervals, as well as stakeholders and their responsibilities. This will allow both parties to track performance over time and identify opportunities for improvement.
Remote Support
With so many employees working remotely, IT support must be readily available. Employees are much more productive when they know that help is only a click away.
Remote support provides technicians with the ability to connect to an end-user’s computer device and troubleshoot issues from a distance. During a session, they can see the screen of the device, interact with it and even take control of it if necessary.
Enhanced remote support tools offer seamless integration with existing processes and software such as help desk, live chat, CRM and business intelligence solutions. They also provide compatibility with networking and security infrastructure, including firewalls and routers.
Attended remote support allows IT to directly connect with the device of an end-user and perform various tasks such as software installation, patch management, rebooting and file transfer. They can share screens and annotations during attended sessions to provide guidance to the end-user. They can also communicate with the end-user during a session using real-time text or canned responses, as well as escalating to an expert if needed.
Onsite Support
For businesses that rely on IT for their everyday operations, having onsite support is essential. Onsite technicians can help fix technical problems quickly, minimize downtime, and ensure that your employees are able to complete their work without interruption.
Onsite IT support is also great for addressing hardware issues, as well as configuring and troubleshooting software applications and systems. Additionally, it can help you set up new hardware on your network and provide user training and support.
Additionally, onsite IT support can help you implement and update security protocols to protect your business from hackers. They can also assist with data recovery if you experience a security breach, mitigating potential damage and loss of productivity. Finally, onsite IT support can help you streamline and standardize technical processes, which saves time and money on IT costs. This can also free up your internal IT team to focus on more critical projects that affect your business’s growth and development.
Expertise
Expertise is a combination of knowledge, skill and proficiency in a specific subject. It distinguishes a person from non-experts in that field and allows him or her to make decisions within that domain of expertise. Expertise can be acquired through education and practical experience.
Although it may seem strange that human factors is interested in the study of expertise, there are many domains where expert performance can have a very high impact on safety. Examples include military aviation, emergency medicine, and professional sports. In these areas it is difficult to recruit top-level experts for laboratory studies and there is a need to understand how expert performance relates to the underlying principles of human factors.
One of the best known theories of how expertise is built is that of Ericsson, which focuses on consistency. However, Hatano and Inagaki found that some experts were able to solve problems in new ways without resorting to routine procedures they had previously used. These researchers described this as adaptive expertise.