Help Desk Support: On-site vs Remote

In the ideal world, you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping your devices running smoothly; every error would give you a code that could be used to easily search and solve a problem, and technical issues would never cause your productivity to come to a standstill. However, life isn’t that simple, which is why you need a company like the Silverlight Technology Group to keep you up and running so you don’t lose any chances to gain revenue.  

The question is, what level of helpdesk services do you need? Do you need someone on-site Monday-Friday to ensure things are going smoothly, or would it be easier to go with a smaller package and rely on remote services? In this post, we’re going to review both methods so you can decide which option is a better fit for your company.  

Remote Services 

Advantages 

Remote support can take out a lot of the hassle of finding room for another person on-site. You won’t need to worry about finding them a desk or providing them with a computer. Tech support, while not in the building, is only a phone call, ticket, or email away. A company with under fifty users might not need a full-time help desk technician, and in which case, they can save money by getting a package that focuses on remote services, with on-site services only acquired when necessary.  Remote support can also yield quicker response times as we have multiple technicians watching their queue, compared to what might be one or two on-site technicians.   

Disadvantages 

A disadvantage of remote services is that any hardware or physical issues will require the user to work alongside the technician to troubleshoot them, or they will need to be put off until a technician is available to arrive on site. Also, you’ll want to have a stable and reliable internet connection to ensure you always have access to your remote technicians. Though you’ll always be able to contact them by phone as well. 

On-Site Services 

Advantages 

Companies with many users can benefit from a full-time help desk technician. Unlike smaller companies, the technician will have enough users to service that they’ll stay productive by fixing technical issues and working to prevent them. When your technician is on-site, you won’t have to wait for them to travel to your location for hardware issues or work with them over the phone to troubleshoot physical issues together. It eliminates the back and forth and makes the overall experience go more smoothly. Plus, an on-site technician will get to know your business’s needs more personally as they’re on the site each day.   

Disadvantages 

The disadvantages of on-site services are that it isn’t as cost-effective as remote services, and response time could be slower, as the technician will need to travel from issue to issue and can often only focus on one task at a time, whereas our remote services provide access to multiple technicians who may be able to respond more quickly. Another issue is having coverage for your entire business, which may be difficult if you have multiple locations. In which case, it may be good to get a package with a combination of on-site and remote services.  

Conclusion 

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what level of support your business needs. Fortunately, the Silverlight Technology Group offers both options (as well as a co-managed service we’ll be discussing in a future post), and you can always switch packages if one doesn’t suit your needs. It’s always nice to have all the options! Let us know in the comments about your experiences with the different services. 

We’ll that’s it for this post, and I’ll be back with a new topic soon. Stay supported!