Help Desk for TelecommutersThe issue of how to support a home computer that is used for business is one of the black holes of computer support. The Problem (The Solution) [excerpts from Cyberlane Commuter] To answer the question "Where does a telecommuter get support?" companies usually choose one of three strategies, or should I say non-working strategies because none of them work. Strategy #1: It's the employee's problem. My wife works for the City of Los Angeles. She supervises a small group - three people. They all telecommute. The strategy of the City of LA is: If you want to telecommute badly enough, you'll buy a computer and support it yourself. Ginnie, and her employees, want to telecommute. They purchased their own computers and maintain them themselves. What's the problem, you ask. Well, why not extend this approach to the entire City regardless of where the employees work? Let's tell everyone (telecommuters and office-bound employees alike): If you want a computer badly enough you'll buy one and maintain it yourself! Think of all the money the City could save, and without the support organization headaches. The result, naturally, would be lost productivity. That is why the City has a support organization. What's the difference at home? Nothing! I asked Ginnie what she would do if her computer blew up now, today, and there was no iLAN Systems. "I would get dressed, pack my bag and go to the office," she answered. "Okay," I replied, "How would you get your computer fixed?" "I would look in the Yellow Pages and carry the computer there," was her reply. "On company time?" I queried. "No," she replied. "The City expects me to do that on my own time." Yeah, right. How about a computer store? That's what Ginnie would find if she went to the Yellow Pages. Isn't that where most people go? Consider this. A Pacific Bell salesman had a problem with Windows ‘95. He installed new software and it screwed up the system. He called the large computer superstore where he purchased the hardware. "No problem," replied the service department, "Bring it in." The next day he picked up his computer. The problem was solved. Windows worked perfectly. The only problem was the technician had wiped out the entire disk and installed the operating system from scratch. All his files were history! If Ginnie had to schlep her broken computer to the computer store, she wouldn't be doing useful work. If some idiot technician blew away all her files, she'd spend time recreating them. City time. Like I said, non-working strategy #1. Strategy #2: Support the link, not the computer. This approach says that the company will support problems with the link from home to office, but will have nothing to do with the employee's computer itself. On the surface this seems reasonable. How can the employee fault isolate the corporate access server, the telephone line, the company supplied-TA [terminal adapter], or external modem, not to mention the million other things that might prevent a connection. Sound good? Catch this scenario. The employee calls the company help desk and the technician checks out the connection with a telephone company technician. "Yep, everything's okay. Good luck." What's the employee to do? It's off to the computer store, this time mad at the company help desk because the tech wouldn't help. Worse, what if the tech was wrong and it really was the link? Phone company techs are wrong all the time. Why should a Help Desk be better? Now the employee has schlepped the computer to the computer store only to find nothing wrong with it, or so says the computer store. As if the computer store techs really know. Can the computer store technician dial into the employer's network? How many computer stores do you know that have ISDN lines? And what about security issues? Non-working stategy #2. Strategy #3: Supply a computer-for business use only. This solution requires the employee to use the computer only for business. The company sets up the computer with the "approved" software. The employee may not add software, change the configuration, or allow anyone else to use the computer. If the computer breaks the employee simply brings the computer to work. The in-house Help Desk will fix it. Again, sounds good. However, about that "approved" configuration. If you check out your corporate LAN you will find non-approved software on almost everyone's desktop. So why should a much more personal home computer be any different? And yes, are you planning to supply laptops? You should. Otherwise some employees couldn't transport them. That could be discrimination. Laptops cost twice as much as a desktop computer for the same power and storage and are much harder to repair. At Hughes, some executives are supplied laptops. They have three configurations: at work on the LAN, stand alone, and dialing in. This is a very complicated setup. Service is needed ten times more frequently and it’s ten times more complicated. Laptop or not, what about turnaround time? Consider the following true story... Ginnie was jealous of Steve, a business contact who works for the government. He was able to telecommute every day. His home office was fully equipped, and he only rarely had to go into the downtown office. An ideal situation. Or so she thought until a recent conversation with him
Ginnie chatted a bit more about his options to hang around the house and be at work without his computer. Remembering the story of the poor guy whose hard drive was erased by a technician fixing a Windows 95 problem, she asked him if he backed up his data before he shipped it off. He said his machine has two hard drives, and he copied everything from the <C> drive to the <D> drive. Cringing inside, Ginnie meekly, said "Well, I hope they don't lose your computer. This is the Federal government you work for!". This gave Steve pause for thought. Unfortunately, our conversation was too late for him to take any other action—he had already shipped it. A" hundred bucks by FedEx" ...he muttered "Humph," Ginnie said, "My tax dollars hard at work". Non-working strategy #3. Steve's computer wasn't even broken. So, what is the solution? The solution is a Help Desk that specializes in home computer support. iLAN maintains such a Help Desk. It is characterized by several capabilities not found in a typical Help Desk…
Seven days, 24-hour support. Anyone working at home knows that they may need support anytime but anyone in the support business knows that around the clock support is expensive. How can iLAN provide competent support, on a 24 by 7 basis at a reasonable price? The answer is simple. iLAN uses telecommuting technology. Every technician has the capability of working from their home. The iLAN network is based on ISDN technology. The entire network, including the Help Desk knowledgebase and trouble ticket system is based on client server technology that works fine over a 128k network. iLAN maintains a commercial database of common desktop problems, the documentation from over 140 common software packages that are part of our People Movers training process, and a specialty database of software patches and fixes on our central data server. This is accessible by everyone, from anywhere. When a customer calls the iLAN Help Desk during normal working hours a technician will answer within seven rings. After hours the technician may or may not be available instantly but will respond within the hour. He might be taking a shower or whatever. After all, he is at home. The same efficiency and productivity delineated in "Cyberlane Commuter" is the efficiency inherent in the iLAN Help Desk. We're more efficient. We telecommute! Support for the WAN link. If the telecommuter dials into a central office via a telephone line, the Help Desk will use that line to troubleshoot the desktop. iLAN technicians are fully knowledgeable with multiple WAN technologies, particularly ISDN and POTS lines. If the telecommuter can connect to the iLAN Help Desk but cannot connect to the employee's home office, it tells us where the problem is…the company’s home office. If iLAN cannot connect, we have strong working relationships with the telephone company to test and troubleshoot the phone line. iLAN technicians are experts at WAN connections, home-to-office. After all, they do it every day. Remote Control Software. The telecommuter's computer must be available to the Help Desk via Remote Control. iLAN has used this approach with large, geographically dispersed organizations with excellent results. Having a technician drive to a site is an old, less efficient, and much more expensive service model. However, Windows 95 is required (or Macintosh OS) as remote control doesn't work well on DOS machines. Experience shows that with remote control software a technician can fix almost double the number of problems in half the time. Without remote control, iLAN technicians can usually fix 50-55% of problems over the phone. Without remote control, the average time to fix non-trivial problems (those that require significant troubleshooting and/or reinstallation of components) is 90 minutes. Using remote control, technicians can fix these problems in 45 minutes. Other service activities such as upgrading software can also be accomplished remotely. The only problems that the technician can't fix remotely are hardware failures and complete rebuilding of operating systems. Trivial problems (such as answers to "how to" questions and/or problems requiring only a check and reset of parameters) constitute over half of the service calls, and they can usually be fixed in 10-15 minutes. To use the iLAN Help Desk, the telecommuter must have remote control software installed. Further, the telecommuter-to-iLAN link must have been tested and documented. The cost-benefit relationship of this approach is obvious. Every time a problem arises that can be fixed remotely you will save approximately $200, based on an average of two hours of travel time per service call. Additionally, the problem will be fixed almost 3 hours quicker House Calls. You can make an appointment to meet an iLAN technician. It is not an 8AM to 5PM window like the washer repairman. We'll be there when we agree to. Further, we'll be equipped to do the job and we'll have the part available to fix the problem. How fast can we get there? On average two hours. Four hours guaranteed. Our technicians live all over the Los Angeles basin but you know how traffic is! Figure that iLAN dispatches a technician within an hour and the average driving time is an hour [Isn't that why you telecommute?] but sometimes it'll take longer. How do I sign up? Since you have reached our home page you obviously have a working modem or TA. Simply fill out the form. The Help Desk will e-mail your account password. This will allow you to download the remote control software from our home page. Once you have the software simply call the Help Desk. The technician will walk you through the setup and connect to your computer. That's it. Next time you have a problem help is only a phone call away. What's the cost? The setup charge is $59 which includes the remote control software. This price assumes that you are intelligent enough to find and download the software, and follow reasonable instructions to set up remote control and test the link. Technician calls are $1.50 per minute, 15 minutes minimum. If you don't have a modem [you found us on a friends computer for example] or you want a technician to come to your home, we will make an initial house call for $119, which includes the cost of the modem and the remote control software, too. To set up an appointment for one of our technicians to come to your house and install a modem and the remote control software, call our Help Desk at 626-457-8482. That’s our "workable solution." It’s just that simple!
Contact Help Desk. For contract inquiries contact Tom Reynolds, phone 626.304.9021 x228.For immediate help now call 626.304.9021 x711. This is a fee service call $1.50/ minute. 15 minute minimum.Hours of operation: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Coast Time, Monday - Friday. |