Technical support for users is a problem that every business that uses computers will encounter, and unless you plan for scalability, your tech support strategy can leave you behind as the organisation grows.
Whether your network consists of two or three desktop systems at the office wired together in a peer-to-peer configuration, a couple hundred clients connecting to a handful of servers over Ethernet with a wireless DMZ for visiting laptops, or a multi-site, multi-vendor conglomeration of Windows domains, UNIX segments and departmental mainframes, one thing besides death and taxes is inevitable: at some point your end users will need technical support.
For both small and large businesses, computer problems result in downtime and that means lost productivity and resultant lost revenues. And regardless of the quality of your hardware and software, Murphy's law will always catch up with you eventually: there will be problems. When those problems can't be solved by end-users, you need a plan for technical support.
Outgrowing vendor support
When the business is small, you may rely on the hardware
and/or software vendors' tech support lines to solve your computer problems. When
a user has a problem, he calls the support line for help. This may seem like
the logical answer, but it has several disadvantages:
- Users may spend a lot of unproductive time on hold.
- Users may have trouble explaining the problem adequately to a stranger over the phone.
- Many vendors are outsourcing tech support to other countries, with resulting language differences that make it even more difficult for users to communicate the problem and/or understand the advice offered.
- Some vendors may charge for telephone support services or limit the number of calls your organisation can make at no cost.
- The vendor support staff members are not familiar with your network's infrastructure or proprietary applications you may have deployed.
Additionally, having each user handle his/her own computer problems can create unnecessary redundancy in the process: several users may have the same problem, but each repeats the entire process (sometimes incurring support fees from the vendor) to reach the same solution instead of benefiting from the experience of the first user to have the problem.
As your organisation grows, it becomes more cost-effective to create an in-house support infrastructure.
In-house tech support
In the beginning, your in-house "tech support department"
may consist of one tech savvy employee who handles the problems on a part-time
basis along with other duties. As you move from a workgroup situation to a more
complex network configuration, you'll probably add one or more full-time IT
administrators and they may handle tech support along with administrative
tasks.
This is a step up from the "every user on his own with vendor support for backup" method you started with. In this case, once a problem has been identified and solved once, there's no need to start all over from scratch if it happens to another user. The IT person will already have the answer since he's dealt with it before.
