End User Support: Improve the End User Experience
Today’s workforce is experiencing a major cultural shift. Employees are working with new technologies that help with innovation and mobility. There is a shift in demographics that encourages diversity and inclusion. Social norms are constantly changing. Thus, businesses are evolving alongside these things to keep up with their workers’ demand for high employee satisfaction. IT is especially prone to evolutions such as this one due to the pioneering nature of technology. IT departments across the United States are being asked to both support and grow the business, which means they must effectively manage business activities today while ensuring that there are enough resources to successfully embark on future endeavors. End user support is particularly important for employees to remain productive and happy, and can actually contribute to a more manageable load for your business’ IT department.
Why Does the End User Experience Matter?
Modern-day organizations have experienced a push for easy-to-use technology to encourage employee engagement and increased productivity. Remote work that utilizes different software and other technology has also seen an increase in recent years. This means that more and more workers are having to endure a technological learning curve every time there is an update to these programs or when their company migrates to a new software or platform.
Ultimate Software’s 2016 survey revealed that 92% of workers say that having the right technology to do their job directly impacts how efficient and satisfied they are. End user support is responsible for teaching end users about this technology that they will use and for giving them a seamless transition to any new platforms. With that said, it is apparent that improving the end user experience is something that should be prioritized for the sake of your business and your employees.
How to Improve Your End User Experience
Below are a few ways you can optimize your IT resources to make the end user experience better for everyone involved.
Outsource Your IT Services
To better allocate your IT department’s time and resources, consider hiring a trustworthy third-party IT service provider. Allowing someone else to do the heavy lifting that is involved in all things tech is beneficial because it typically costs less (which means a higher return on investment), provides disaster recovery options, improves the end user experience, and allows for scalability. When choosing an IT support company for your business, keep in mind that a firm that uses cloud applications and provides comprehensive support is key in getting the most out of your investment.
Update Your IT Support
Faster solutions mean faster results. When it comes to technology challenges in the workplace, be sure to examine all aspects of the technology. You need to be able to recognize that your IT model may be outdated, and you should be aware of the fact that a clunky interface or a slow system can seriously hurt your business.
Your employees want an easy, more modernized experience when engaging with and familiarizing themselves with new kinds of technology. Traditional user support models tend to be expensive and inefficient. To keep things moving more productively, it makes more sense to transform your end user support to the lowest cost level. For example, workers should use a self-service or self-help resolution, similar to Contigo’s on-demand user support. This empowers your employees to find resolutions to their simple issues quickly and takes a significant amount of pressure off of your IT team. Additionally, costs are cut down greatly.
Support A Remote Workforce
According to a study by Softchoice, 85% of workers feel that it is important for their employer to offer flexibility in terms of working remotely. This “work whenever and however” mindset has caused an influx of different devices in the working landscape, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. It’s also started a conversation about how to support remote workers with reliable IT and cybersecurity.
Unfortunately, remote work comes with its disadvantages. Security begins to become an issue with this new network of unsecured devices, which means that you must proactively fight threats and secure data. Most organizations, however, are not fully equipped to take on these security battles. Instead, it would benefit businesses to outsource their IT security tasks to create a safe environment for all of their employees – including those that work remotely – to be able to work diligently via the technology tools they have.
Enable Collaboration
With 94% of North American office employees needing to collaborate with teammates in order to do their jobs, and 83% using technology to work with remote workers in real time, it becomes increasingly important to have the right collaboration tools for your employees. Solutions like high definition audio/video and mobile devices can help to assist your staff in working together.
However, simply having the tools for collaboration is not enough. You must equip your employees with proper training for a seamless end user experience and readily available end user support when technology issues arise. To reduce the amount of tickets in the queue, it is important to choose an outsourced IT support company that provides ongoing and reliable solutions that are tailored to your business’s needs.
Learn About Our Managed IT Services and End User Support Capabilities
If you find that your business’s IT department is overwhelmed by the amount of tickets being generated or you do not have the resources to properly train your staff in migrating to a new platform, consider contacting us at Contigo today. We can help your business modernize its IT practices, support a remote workforce, and enable collaboration through our many IT support solutions.