Information-sharing is crucial among home-support staff, with frequent meetings to review major problems, and a call log to document support inquiries and actions. A knowledge database with details on problems and solutions lets support staff resolve user problems efficiently.
CMP's IT Home Support team is stationed in one office area so technicians can exchange information easily. We also use e-mail and discussion databases to troubleshoot helpdesk inquiries. Keeping close tabs on our home users helps us spot trends that can lead to bigger problems, such as hardware failures and problems with new applications.
7. Minimize Costs
We've found that it costs about 30 percent more to support a home user than a user at headquarters. That's because of the remote-access, telecommunications, shipping and hardware costs associated with supporting home users.
But there are ways to cut costs, and standardizing on the home-office equipment and installing combination printer/fax/copier/scanner devices helps. The HP multifunction device we chose for home users cut the number of home-office devices we support by one-fourth. We also moved our ISDN users to the cheaper cable or DSL services because, in some cases, ISDN with "700" service was costing $5,000 a month. And we moved full-time home users from the $6-per-hour toll-free access to the VPN, saving the company thousands of dollars.
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