CallOne Reduces Help Desk Burden
While help desk support is certainly crucial to keeping your users up and running, the cost and effort of offering quality service is often a major drain on IT resources.
Conscious of the burden that comprehensive help desk support is in multi-vendor, multi-platform environments, DecisionOne Corp. (Frazer, Pa.) has announced expanded service and support for its One To 1 suite of desktop support solutions. The primary component of this expansion is CallOne, a help desk technical solution designed to support hardware, software and network-related issues.
Added to NetworkOne, AssetOne, ExpertOne, as well as support partner services and program management services, CallOne can be used to either augment in-house help desk centers or provide an outsource support solution.
Many companies look to outsourcing as a way to reduce cost of ownership, rather than staffing a help desk during off-hours and holidays, explains Bill Wohl, director of corporate communications for DecisionOne. "With outsourced services, companies may only have to pay on a per-incident basis, rather than paying for a full-time staff that works regardless of call traffic," he says.
While CallOne does help reduce cost of ownership, it is more of a solution for ensuring highly-skilled staffing at all hours. A big problem for companies maintaining help desks is keeping employees up to skill on the latest technology, Wohl says. DecisionOne is up to date on the latest technology due to its direct access to software and hardware vendors. "Upgrading is part of our everyday business," he says. "To be competitive as a help desk resource, DecisionOne has to be up to date."
CallOne's Second-level Support is expected to add to the allure of DecisionOne's offering, Wohl notes. Second-level Support allows a call center access to high-level information if call center operators are "stumped" by specific questions, he says.
Second-level Support assists with questions pertaining to OEM hardware and software, as well as technical support issues related to networked PCs, network operating systems and groupware applications within a client/server environment. Though CallOne was originally designed as a desktop support tool, DecisionOne has found users have questions about both their desktops and their servers, Wohl points out.
In addition to CallOne, DecisionOne recently issued its 10 Midrange Systems Traps (And How You Can Avoid Them) guide book as a management primer for the midrange market, according to Wohl. "The book was not designed to be a definitive guide but a source to provoke discussion about certain issues," he says.
Topics included in the guide book were chosen based upon DecisionOne's experiences, Wohl explains, and include: "spreading personnel too thin, taking on special projects, adding new support roles, buying new, buying too soon, having too many suppliers, do-it-yourself network management, too many brands, uncoordinated calamities and strategic isolation."
CIOs, MIS managers and senior executives may obtain a copy of the guide book by calling DecisionOne at (800) 233-9872 or faxing (610) 298-2910.