REMOTE WORKING REVAMPS TECH SUPPORT One trend that continues to maintain its foothold is remote working, a persistent factor for the evolving role of tech support. According to a recent study by the International Workplace Group, 70% of employees work remote at least once a week and 50% work remote half the week. While remote work is not a new concept, it appears to be increasing in prevalence. Flexible working options are offered by some of the world’s most successful and prominent brands, such as Microsoft, Mastercard and Uber. What does this mean for tech support?
In the past, support roles have functioned within the physical space of the business. But with so many workers connecting from remote locations, the physical presence of support is becoming less important from an operational perspective. Dave Hagedorn with the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command, sees support teams consistently vocalizing concern for their job security as a result of the disintegration of the traditional tech support role, commenting, “As we move from local domain to an enterprise model, tech support is very worried… We have to realize that we are likely going to lose our face-to-face, help desk support.” This move toward digitization has changed the traditional tier system of tech support because we no longer require a physical presence to the same degree. Businesses are finding alternative solutions to tech support where users are connected with call centers or self-service portals to complete a large part of their own troubleshooting. While this automation may save time with basic tasks like password reset, there is still a gap to be bridged when technology fails to accommodate for a user’s lack of understanding or inability to solve their own problem. Tech support personnel is still incredibly useful for these mediation purposes.
Despite the grim outlook for human involvement in tier one roles, many experts do not believe that tech support is going anywhere. Hagedorn still sees value in keeping a personal element in tech support:
“The most important thing from a tech support position, is a user perspective. I think we’re losing the personal element. We still need that personal touch to be the voice of the user…In the diminishing realm of the help desk, I think there’s value still for tech support, but companies are going to have to very wisely balance that.”
With careful consideration, organizations can utilize the skills of tech support in other, more useful areas, shifting towards more complex capabilities.
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