Support Swarming Boosts Productivity, Satisfaction & Retention

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suppOrT DEsks sHOuLD sHED THEIr TIErs aND sWarM arOuND IssuEs
Todays technology support landscape is rapidly changing. Whether youre supporting internal employees or external customers, your end-users are more mobile, using a wider range of devices, and have higher expectations than ever before. Unfortunately, many help desks are challenged to evolve their organizational structures and processes to keep pace. They continue to rely on traditional support tiers and hot potato escalation models that result in lengthy resolution times, stunted knowledge sharing, high employee turnover and poor customer experiences. Its time for support organizations to break down the walls between tiers and embrace a more collaborative approach to support, pulling in the right people with the right skills to swarm around issues as soon as they occur. Frontline reps should act as a support concierge, guiding the end-user through the issue resolution process versus dumping them up the chain. Higher level experts should be accessible to jump in and out of support issues as needed, helping to resolve problems as soon as they occur and provide on-the-job training to lower level reps. Finally, support reps should be able to securely bring in external vendors and experts as needed to assist with end-user issues in real-time. The Bomgar remote support solution enables support teams to swarm around issues by allowing multiple people to collaborate within a single remote support session. Frontline reps have multiple options for inviting other support reps or outside vendors into a session: 1) select a specific rep by name; 2) request any available rep from a certain team; or 3) broadcast an invitation for any available rep that has the skills required to resolve the issue. By allowing frontline reps to invite a more skilled representative or external expert into a remote support session, Bomgar helps to reduce escalation rates, increase first contact resolution, and improve the end-users overall experience. It also increases communication and discussion between the support representatives, leading to better knowledge sharing and higher employee satisfaction.

IT support services groups should implement collaboration within the I&O [infrastructure & operations] group to improve the level of support provided to end users and improve overall response time and reduce impact of outages.
JEFF BROOKS, GARTNER RESEARCH DIRECTOR, EFFeCtiVe CoMMUNiCAtioN AND CoLLABoRAtioN DRiVeS ReAL CoSt SAViNGS iN IT SUPPoRt SeRViCeS

SHARE REMOTE SUPPORT SESSIONS WITH MULTIPLE REPS Bomgar enables multiple support representatives to work together on the same issue, whether theyre sitting in the same room or on opposite sides of the world. Bomgars session sharing functionality allows support reps to invite one or more additional reps or experts into a remote support session, where they can jointly view the end-users screen, share control of the mouse and keyboard, and chat with each other and the end-user. With session sharing, support reps who need help simply send an invitation to a specific rep or request the first available rep on a specific team. The reps can collaborate to resolve the issue and invite additional reps in if needed. If the frontline reps assistance is no longer required, session sharing creates a warm hand-off so the end-user doesnt have to repeat information or re-explain the issue. This swarming approach facilitates more collaboration between support reps, leading to faster and more creative resolutions. It also allows first-tier reps to watch and learn from subject matter experts (SMEs) during a remote support session, improving on-the-job training and employee retention.
Multiple tech support agents can collaborate in a single remote support session, seeing the same screen, sharing controls and chatting with eachother and the end-users.

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2012 Bomgar, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. BOMGAR and the BOMGAR logo are trademarks of Bomgar Corporation; other trademarks shown are the property of their respective owners.

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REQUEST HELP FROM OTHER REPS BASED ON ISSUES Bomgars Intelligent Collaboration feature allows a frontline rep who needs assistance during a remote support session to broadcast a request for help to other reps or SMEs with certain skillsets. With Intelligent Collaboration, the frontline rep doesnt need to know which other reps are available or who has what skills. They simply create an invitation, and Bomgar routes it to all available reps who have the skills associated with that issue. After receiving the invitation, the expert can click to immediately join the remote support session and begin assisting with the issue. The expert can either help for a portion of the session and exit, allowing your higher cost reps to tackle more issues, or take the session over, freeing the first rep to pick up the next request. Intelligent Collaboration is especially useful for organizations with disparate groups that have to work together to support end-users.
During a remote support session, support representatives can broadcast a request for assistance to any available reps with the required skills.

SECURELY COLLABORATE WITH OUTSIDE EXPERTS To handle the variety and complexity of todays technology, tech support organizations often need to tap outside experts and vendors to resolve IT issues. Bomgars Rep Invite feature also lets you collaborate with third-party experts and vendors in a remote support session without compromising security. Just like an internal expert, they can join a session, see and control the end-users screen and chat, all as an invited guest of the internal rep. Administrators can limit which internal reps can use Rep Invite to bring in third parties and create multiple security profiles to define how invited reps can interact with end-users. Bomgars comprehensive audit trail, including videos of support sessions, ensure all activities performed by both internal and external reps are recorded. Rep Invite lets you bring in any expert securely, even if you dont have an LDAP profile created for him or her.

PROVIDE PREFERRED VENDORS WITH SECURE REMOTE ACCESS In a large company, hundreds or even thousands of vendor technicians may require periodic remote access to application servers, network devices, or users desktops. This constant ow of vendor remote access is necessary to keep your infrastructure functioning properly, but it can also be a threat to your organizations security and undermine your efforts to maintain regulatory compliance. Bomgars Embassy feature is a way to provide secure, auditable, crossplatform remote access to vendors who need to regularly access your systems. You can create an Embassy for each and every vendor, and granularly control what each can or cannot access. Creating Embassy teams is a much more secure and manageable alternative to giving individual vendor representatives VPN access to your internal systems. Embassy teams are similar to internal teams, allowing frontline reps to invite an individual rep, any rep from a specific team, or an Embassy rep with a certain skillset to join a session. Admins can monitor and report on all vendor activity through Bomgar, which captures video recordings of every remote support session showing every click and keystroke that occurred.

Internal support representatives can invite multiple external experts and vendors into a remote support session where they can all view the endusers system and share the controls.

Bomgars Embassy feature allows administrators to give secure, monitored access to external vendors who need regular access to systems.

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info@bomgar.com

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2012 Bomgar, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. BOMGAR and the BOMGAR logo are trademarks of Bomgar Corporation; other trademarks shown are the property of their respective owners.

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CASE STUDY: cARBONITE IMPROvEs suPPORT cOllABORATION wITH BOMGAR Carbonite was founded in 2005 with a clear mission to provide an online back-up and restore service that is simple and affordable. Every day, Carbonite backs up more than 200 million new files for customers with advanced technology that ensures each back-up happens quickly, safely and without incident. Carbonites customers range from businesses to families to students, and the company offers them multiple avenues for on-demand computer support, including 24-hour live chat and an email support team ready to resolve problems as soon as they occur. Support for our customers starts day one so it is very important we have a remote support solution that is broad enough to cover all devices, including laptops, mobiles, and tablets, no matter where they are, said Carbonite Vice-President of Services Rich Surace. Bomgar really fits the business model of Carbonite with its delivery of anytime, anywhere support. I really like the fact it is a scalable solution that can grow as we do, but most of all I like that it simply takes the pain out of customers having to describe their problem. Surace also expresses appreciation for Bomgars collaborative capabilities. With agents based in different locations, Bomgars real-time collaboration feature comes into play if a remote agent has a problem and needs help. Carbonites support agents can collaborate with other colleagues by sharing a support session. This means that multiple members of the organization can help in resolving critical issues quickly, resulting in a more highly skilled staff serving its customers. Carbonites satisfaction with Bomgar is a direct result of the increased satisfaction it allows the company to deliver to customers. Our overall customer satisfaction has definitely increased because of Bomgar. We can help our customers solve issues remotely with greater ease, we can better train our agents and we can do it all cost effectively, said Surace.

THE BOMGAR AdvANTAGE Bomgar provides remote support solutions for easily and securely supporting computing systems and mobile devices. The companys appliance-based products help organizations improve tech support efficiency and performance by enabling them to securely support nearly any device or system, anywhere in the world including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, BlackBerry and more. Bomgar routinely undergoes extensive internal scans and tests by McAfee, IBM, Nessus, and Qualisys, as well as a full product penetration assessment by Symantec. And crucial for government agencies, Bomgar is the only vendor to offer a solution thats achieved FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validation, a U.S. government standard. In addition to being the most secure remote support solution, Bomgar fits seamlessly into your support environment, with options for any organizations size and needs. Bomgar offers pre-built integrations for the leading service desk, CRM, and systems management solutions, as well as an open API and Professional Services team to help you build custom integrations. More than 6,500 organizations across 65 countries have deployed Bomgar to drastically improve customer satisfaction while increasing productivity and reducing costs.

Support organizations with good self-service models are rethinking their support processes and moving from an escalation-based model to a collaboration-based model. They are collapsing their support tiers, creating a single team of people who collaborate on solving customer issues (playing catch). This is replacing the model of multiple teams that toss issues back and forth through incident routing, rerouting, escalation, and rejection (playing ping-pong).
greg oXton, eXecUtiVe director of the consortiUM for serVice innoVation, NO MORE TIERS: IS INTELLIGENT SWARMING A BETTER WAY TO SOLVE CUSTOMER ISSUES?

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Gartner, Effective Communication and Collaboration Drives Real Cost Savings in IT Support Services by Jeffrey M. Brooks, Research Director, October 2012 HDI SupportWorld, No More Tiers: Is Intelligent Swarming a Better Way to Solve Customer Issues? by Greg Oxton, Executive Director of the Consortium for Service Innovation, May/June 2012

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info@bomgar.com

I 866.205.3650 (U.S.) I +44 (0)1628.480.210 (U.K./EMEA)

B O M G A R . C OM

2012 Bomgar, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. BOMGAR and the BOMGAR logo are trademarks of Bomgar Corporation; other trademarks shown are the property of their respective owners.