Tech Support Company of Future
Tech Support - what a royal pain? I'll explain in this post what I want to do or see in the near future with the technologies that are available today. Anyone with the money or the vision to create such a Support Company, feel free to comment and lets get to work on it, I'd be more than happy to be a part.
I can't believe that Microsoft themselves doesn't come up with this form of support for their own OS and other software, the money that they could gain by doing support for EVERY company in the world using their software would be astronomical, not like they need anymore money or anything. It could become the Microsoft Support Center - a world wide support company, besides, it is their OS and what about Office, programming etc. Who knows it better?
One thing I've always wanted to do was create a large tech support company with employees who would never leave their homes but get paid a 40 hour work week. Telecommuting the way computer jobs should be and the way it was meant to be. Think of it, no travel, no traffic, no baby sitters or day care, no boss breathing down your neck, log in during your hours of work, log off when the day ends. Using your own knowledge, phone, and computer and receiving a pay check at the end of the week.
All of those working for this company around the US or World for that matter could work together by having a tickets system or forum where questions could come in and be left in a queue to be picked up or taken by someone from the support group or multiple people. More complex calls could go to those that would know the resolution, more or less everyone networked together so information could be exchanged easily or a call forwarded to proper support staff. When forwarding these calls it would be calling someone of knowledge at home waiting to resolve the issue as support staff does daily while sitting in the work place. This company wouldn't be an actual building as such but thousands, millions, of homes across the world with someone of knowledge there for your computer knowledge picking. I go to sites daily and help people out or at least try to in forums by answering their questions, why not get paid for it?
Customers hate nothing more than sitting on hold or getting busy signals (Always). People go to current forums or newsgroups but never get the answers to their questions. With millions sitting at home with the knowledge to support many things, software, hardware, etc. Could be set within particular groups and pay scales for that knowledge. You can't leave out time zones either. When I'm in bed, others on the other side of the world are wide awake and into the next day already, meaning never a busy signal and always someone to answer and possibly get your problem solved. You could also have HOW TO and explanations shown to you. Say you want to know how to do a certain function say in Excel? Someone with the knowledge of Excel could walk you through it either visually or vocally. It could also be used for learning or teaching experiences. I think this form of support could become even larger than Microsoft itself and be an even richer company overall. All the technology for such a support company already exists.
Companies would buy into support contracts and all (INTERNAL) IT - Support Centers would become obsolete. The cost savings to employers would definitely be decreased. Everyone that would work for this huge Support company would be a contractor and staying at home. The technology is already here to get this ball rolling. All companies go to outsourcing because of it's money saving factors well this is outsourcing at a whole new level. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't want to stay at home and collect a pay check for doing what they already do by driving 40-60 miles a day - minus - (Risks, Mileage, Traffic, Weather conditions, Parking and Travel costs). You also have people that may supplement current incomes on weekends by doing this, so even the weekends are covered. All hours are covered because people could pick or choose what hours they want to work. You do away with overtime, you set pays per knowledge and complexity and it could be lower than what a company pays already for such support without the knowledge, more or less companies that have people running their support and not really having a clue.
You can take this a step further. Dell, Gateway could hire this company as they already do in some cases (Sub-Contracting). If you want to travel? In your local area they would simply contact one of these support staffers by phone and you'd go to the house of the individual who needs say a new hard drive installed, you've seen the Geek Squad. You could have hourly workers or a pay per work basis. There could be a huge directory of contractors who could do this function or both, during their work hours and those who just want to do vocal or connected support. You would have support staff in every state and every county, and country for that matter, if properly set up. Ones that could travel or do home support and those only doing phone or networked support (Internet). Those at home also are using their own equipment no costs for companies for these computers, the contractor is responsible for his own costs if this is the job he wants.
How about getting someone you can't understand? Example have you called Dell or Gateway from the US and gotten someone you could NOT understand and they tried walking you through fixing your problem (Impossible). In the early days of computers I learned more out of anger of Gateways support staff that I did everything myself and learned countless things on my own. With this set up you could get a English speaking US citizen actually from your area giving you tech support and he could connect to you instead of walking you through it, problem solved.
The support phone number would allow you to choose the language you want and location. Other example if you live in the French Quarter in Louisiana you could get another person that speaks your language, from the French Quarter. With all the different dialects just within the US alone is a problem, this is now solved because the way people speak from say New York to those in the South you get a support staffer in your area - much easier communications.
You can have this in so many forms, you could have a website that people go to and pay per incident at a reasonable cost with credit card or pay pal account. Have a phone number that a person uses for their company alone and a support staff configured for that company only paying a monthly or yearly fee. An 800 phone number for anyone needing support they can use and choose the support they want and it is given to them via the phone or internet and paid for by credit card.
If you like the way your Support Center is already? You use those individuals and give them VPN access and this allows those workers to do what they do now, but from home. Doing all of these mentioned above with the person doing the support, never leaving their home.
I worked in a support center for a company and there was nothing I couldn't do from home that I did there. I answered the phone, took the call, connected to the person and fixed if able, or sent a ticket to next level with software such as ARS and the use of Citrix. These then were picked up from a higher level support person. There was say 15-20 people within the support center and you could just hire these individuals giving them VPN access to their company and these people could do everything securely from their own homes getting the same results with less hassles and costs from both the company and the employee. Making for a much better relationship. I was able to even do this while I worked at this company because everything was already there to do it when set up properly, I would have just needed a way that the support phone line would ring my home phone or a dedicated line.
You can also do away with some of the Chiefs you have within your company saving so much more money with this model. I have many friends that could do this easily with the proper connections and set up saving companies thousands if not millions in support costs. With all these new technologies and communications software's you can have a support center run from your home fairly easily. The problem is how do you get paid to do this?
This is where a huge support company comes in with the same vision as I have and the companies willing to pay this support company for its support or even hiring you as a support representative alone as their support contact say for a small legal firm or something. It comes down to how will they contact you and how will you connect or fix their problem? You answer your phone, get the question or problem, either walk the client through the resolution or connect to them with available software or forward to someone else who has the knowledge to handle a particular software or problem. Then getting paid for this support either on an hourly basis or incident basis.
Just think of all the people that get on a computer and something goes wrong and they have no one to contact to help them through their problem regardless of how minor and at 24/7? If everyone knew of a single phone number or company (such as Microsoft) that they could call or go to internet (Web Page) and ask or get support, don't you think this would be incredible? As an employee don't you think sitting at your computer at home as I do daily for say 12 or more hours a day and actually having the ability to get paid doing it would be another incredible thing?
Here is a link to a site that seems to be doing what this post is about:
http://www.workingsol.com/home.htm
How big and how well it works is another story. I've had this idea for years since my first days with my Gateway and toying with everything that was included with Windows and this will be touched on in my next post.
The wave of the future is NOW and all the things are in place to allow all of this to happen. The big question is WHEN and WHO?
My next post is going to go over the way I could do support from my home with what is available for free today and will explain sort of what I touched on with this article. With this post and my next you should see where I am headed with this. Just need some way of getting paid or someone with a vision to get it started???
I can't believe that Microsoft themselves doesn't come up with this form of support for their own OS and other software, the money that they could gain by doing support for EVERY company in the world using their software would be astronomical, not like they need anymore money or anything. It could become the Microsoft Support Center - a world wide support company, besides, it is their OS and what about Office, programming etc. Who knows it better?
One thing I've always wanted to do was create a large tech support company with employees who would never leave their homes but get paid a 40 hour work week. Telecommuting the way computer jobs should be and the way it was meant to be. Think of it, no travel, no traffic, no baby sitters or day care, no boss breathing down your neck, log in during your hours of work, log off when the day ends. Using your own knowledge, phone, and computer and receiving a pay check at the end of the week.
All of those working for this company around the US or World for that matter could work together by having a tickets system or forum where questions could come in and be left in a queue to be picked up or taken by someone from the support group or multiple people. More complex calls could go to those that would know the resolution, more or less everyone networked together so information could be exchanged easily or a call forwarded to proper support staff. When forwarding these calls it would be calling someone of knowledge at home waiting to resolve the issue as support staff does daily while sitting in the work place. This company wouldn't be an actual building as such but thousands, millions, of homes across the world with someone of knowledge there for your computer knowledge picking. I go to sites daily and help people out or at least try to in forums by answering their questions, why not get paid for it?
Customers hate nothing more than sitting on hold or getting busy signals (Always). People go to current forums or newsgroups but never get the answers to their questions. With millions sitting at home with the knowledge to support many things, software, hardware, etc. Could be set within particular groups and pay scales for that knowledge. You can't leave out time zones either. When I'm in bed, others on the other side of the world are wide awake and into the next day already, meaning never a busy signal and always someone to answer and possibly get your problem solved. You could also have HOW TO and explanations shown to you. Say you want to know how to do a certain function say in Excel? Someone with the knowledge of Excel could walk you through it either visually or vocally. It could also be used for learning or teaching experiences. I think this form of support could become even larger than Microsoft itself and be an even richer company overall. All the technology for such a support company already exists.
Companies would buy into support contracts and all (INTERNAL) IT - Support Centers would become obsolete. The cost savings to employers would definitely be decreased. Everyone that would work for this huge Support company would be a contractor and staying at home. The technology is already here to get this ball rolling. All companies go to outsourcing because of it's money saving factors well this is outsourcing at a whole new level. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't want to stay at home and collect a pay check for doing what they already do by driving 40-60 miles a day - minus - (Risks, Mileage, Traffic, Weather conditions, Parking and Travel costs). You also have people that may supplement current incomes on weekends by doing this, so even the weekends are covered. All hours are covered because people could pick or choose what hours they want to work. You do away with overtime, you set pays per knowledge and complexity and it could be lower than what a company pays already for such support without the knowledge, more or less companies that have people running their support and not really having a clue.
You can take this a step further. Dell, Gateway could hire this company as they already do in some cases (Sub-Contracting). If you want to travel? In your local area they would simply contact one of these support staffers by phone and you'd go to the house of the individual who needs say a new hard drive installed, you've seen the Geek Squad. You could have hourly workers or a pay per work basis. There could be a huge directory of contractors who could do this function or both, during their work hours and those who just want to do vocal or connected support. You would have support staff in every state and every county, and country for that matter, if properly set up. Ones that could travel or do home support and those only doing phone or networked support (Internet). Those at home also are using their own equipment no costs for companies for these computers, the contractor is responsible for his own costs if this is the job he wants.
How about getting someone you can't understand? Example have you called Dell or Gateway from the US and gotten someone you could NOT understand and they tried walking you through fixing your problem (Impossible). In the early days of computers I learned more out of anger of Gateways support staff that I did everything myself and learned countless things on my own. With this set up you could get a English speaking US citizen actually from your area giving you tech support and he could connect to you instead of walking you through it, problem solved.
The support phone number would allow you to choose the language you want and location. Other example if you live in the French Quarter in Louisiana you could get another person that speaks your language, from the French Quarter. With all the different dialects just within the US alone is a problem, this is now solved because the way people speak from say New York to those in the South you get a support staffer in your area - much easier communications.
You can have this in so many forms, you could have a website that people go to and pay per incident at a reasonable cost with credit card or pay pal account. Have a phone number that a person uses for their company alone and a support staff configured for that company only paying a monthly or yearly fee. An 800 phone number for anyone needing support they can use and choose the support they want and it is given to them via the phone or internet and paid for by credit card.
If you like the way your Support Center is already? You use those individuals and give them VPN access and this allows those workers to do what they do now, but from home. Doing all of these mentioned above with the person doing the support, never leaving their home.
I worked in a support center for a company and there was nothing I couldn't do from home that I did there. I answered the phone, took the call, connected to the person and fixed if able, or sent a ticket to next level with software such as ARS and the use of Citrix. These then were picked up from a higher level support person. There was say 15-20 people within the support center and you could just hire these individuals giving them VPN access to their company and these people could do everything securely from their own homes getting the same results with less hassles and costs from both the company and the employee. Making for a much better relationship. I was able to even do this while I worked at this company because everything was already there to do it when set up properly, I would have just needed a way that the support phone line would ring my home phone or a dedicated line.
You can also do away with some of the Chiefs you have within your company saving so much more money with this model. I have many friends that could do this easily with the proper connections and set up saving companies thousands if not millions in support costs. With all these new technologies and communications software's you can have a support center run from your home fairly easily. The problem is how do you get paid to do this?
This is where a huge support company comes in with the same vision as I have and the companies willing to pay this support company for its support or even hiring you as a support representative alone as their support contact say for a small legal firm or something. It comes down to how will they contact you and how will you connect or fix their problem? You answer your phone, get the question or problem, either walk the client through the resolution or connect to them with available software or forward to someone else who has the knowledge to handle a particular software or problem. Then getting paid for this support either on an hourly basis or incident basis.
Just think of all the people that get on a computer and something goes wrong and they have no one to contact to help them through their problem regardless of how minor and at 24/7? If everyone knew of a single phone number or company (such as Microsoft) that they could call or go to internet (Web Page) and ask or get support, don't you think this would be incredible? As an employee don't you think sitting at your computer at home as I do daily for say 12 or more hours a day and actually having the ability to get paid doing it would be another incredible thing?
Here is a link to a site that seems to be doing what this post is about:
http://www.workingsol.com/home.htm
How big and how well it works is another story. I've had this idea for years since my first days with my Gateway and toying with everything that was included with Windows and this will be touched on in my next post.
The wave of the future is NOW and all the things are in place to allow all of this to happen. The big question is WHEN and WHO?
My next post is going to go over the way I could do support from my home with what is available for free today and will explain sort of what I touched on with this article. With this post and my next you should see where I am headed with this. Just need some way of getting paid or someone with a vision to get it started???
posted by Cellar Dweller at 1:58 PM
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