During the pandemic, IT departments have served on the business frontlines, helping organizations implement digital transformation strategies to enable a remote and distributed workforce. According to Splashtop’s 2022 State of Remote Support Market Trends Report, that has come at a cost as 65 percent of IT help desk teams in the United States report an increase in team members reporting unsustainable levels of stress.
Compounding issues, 94 percent of respondents say their help desk function has been affected by hiring challenges, retention issues, and/or skill shortages over the past 12 months. As a result, 67 percent report challenges with maintaining IT support goals.
“With many employees working remotely on a regular basis, IT and help desk staff face higher ticket volumes, more diverse set of devices to support, and greater security challenges,” said Philip Sheu, co-founder and CTO at Splashtop. “More efficient remote support workflows and tools can help alleviate the additional burden and improve satisfaction on both sides.”
The report shows the need for remote IT support continues to increase and will remain dominant, according to 96 percent of respondents. Nearly 100 percent said ‘support at distance’ is required for the majority of tickets.
Sheu continued, “Efficiency can come from integrating the remote support tool into your ticketing system, configuring rules to route support requests automatically, and making it easy for technicians to collaborate. All these can reduce the time spent on resolving tickets and managing the help desk.”
Key Takeaways of the State of Remote Support Report include:
- New obstacles supporting a distributed workforce – While there is a defined need for remote support to optimize the flexible/work from home (WFH) models, new communication and technical support challenges have emerged. In fact, 95 percent of respondents say supporting remote users comes with new technical and communication challenges, but it is critical for effective flexible work strategies. Hardware peripheral support, password resets, patching and updating are common daily activities that can be solved efficiently with good communication channels in place. IT professionals need to adapt to these challenges to support remote workers technically and be able to do so while also working remotely. The prevalence of bring your own device (BYOD) creates complexity via device diversity. With 94 percent of organizations allowing or requiring personal device usage for work, support teams need to be able to navigate a diverse device environment. In fact, 87 percent of organizations say the increase in BYOD was accelerated by the pandemic and as a result, IT requires tools and processes that support a wide range of device types, operating systems, and networks.
- User error makes up a meaningful share of help desk tickets – User error accounts for half or more of all IT help desk tickets, according to 70 percent of respondents, making it essential to have processes and technologies in place to identify, solve and help the user learn from their errors.
- Remote support sessions deliver the best efficiency and end-user satisfaction – Nearly three-quarters of respondents say remote support sessions deliver the best efficiency and end-user satisfaction, as they can log in and see what the user is experiencing, troubleshoot and resolve issues. This process can streamline the help desk ticketing process, provide an ideal user experience and identify significant problems throughout the organization including security holes and risks.
- Augmented reality (AR) for support is game-changing for many organizations – Of those surveyed, 42 percent of respondents say the ability to visualize end users’ environments via IT support leveraging AR has had a dramatic impact on resolving issues
