Providing Remote Technical Support Through Online Meetings

 

Are you still limiting your technical support to phone calls? Do you know how much more interactive and productive your help desk representatives can be when they work with customers in an online meeting?

Organizations that use Nefsis for video conferencing can extend its functionality to the help desk by conducting interactive support calls — for both internal and external customers — through online meetings. Nefsis online meetings include remote desktop control, file transfer, hand-outs and other built-in remote technical support tools.

What Advantages Does Nefsis Give You?

Look at some of the main advantages of extending Nefsis into your help desk function:

• Users in your organization are already accustomed to Nefsis and to the feel of online meetings.
• Your organization gets more mileage out of existing Nefsis licenses, and doesn't need to spend money on pure-play remote control software that duplicates Nefsis' functionality.
• Your help desk representatives can stop working in the dark. When they can see what they're doing and can control it, they have much more productive, interactive technical support calls. They don't need to constantly ask, “What are you seeing now?” or verbally direct users around their computer.
• Help desk representatives can troubleshoot any PC capable of running Nefsis.
• Either user — the help desk representative or the customer — can initiate the online meeting and remote PC control session.

In addition to video conferencing and online meetings, Nefsis gives your help desk representatives the three most important tools they need to troubleshoot problems and support customers remotely:

• remote PC control, subject to permission of remote user
• file transfer between PCs, for copying files from either computer to the other
• VoIP, video and audio across the technical support call, so that the help desk representative and the customer can see and hear each other

What's Different?

There are several big differences that set Nefsis apart from pure-play remote control products:

• Help desk representatives can conduct technical support both inside and outside of the firewall, with the same safeguards and security. This means they can use the same tool to troubleshoot on the next floor as on the next continent.
• IT managers do not need to install new software to all PCs in the organization, and there is no need to instruct external customers in installing remote control software. Whether for an online meeting or a technical support call, users simply click to run Nefsis' dynamic, Web-based installation.
• Typical remote control products are permission-optional. Because Nefsis is a completely interactive product, it requires that customers be at their computer to give permission before the help desk representative can control their PC.
• Nefsis allows different degrees of control: individual application, individual display (if the customer is using two or more monitors) or entire desktop. At all times, the customer can terminate the remote session and stop control.
• Just as Nefsis provides for recording video conferences and online meetings, it allows recording of technical support calls for later reference and for training purposes.

How-to:

Help desk representative initiates control

The help desk representative can start the online meeting, invite the customer, then request remote PC control.

The representative starts an online meeting as Host or Presenter and sends an invitation to the customer.

Once the customer has joined, the representative right-clicks on the customer in the user-list and selects Remote PC.

The customer needs to allow or deny the remote PC request.

In case the customer uses more than one monitor, Nefsis prompts the representative to choose the one to control.

Besides navigating and controlling the customer's PC, the representative can also annotate the session with boxes, ovals, text, highlighting, etc. (The customer does not see the annotations, but Nefsis can save them when recording the session, if applicable.)

Nefsis displays a stop-control reminder to the customer for as long as the representative has control.

Customer initiates control

Alternatively, the customer can give control to the help desk representative.

The customer starts an online meeting as Host or Presenter and sends an invitation to the help desk representative. The customer shares a region, application, Web browser or the entire desktop.

The customer right-clicks on the help desk representative in the user-list and selects Give Control.

The representative can control only the part of the PC that the customer has shared. At any point, the customer can click Stop Control in the upper-right corner of the current share.

File transfer

Either the help desk representative or the customer can transfer files between computers within the online meeting by right-clicking the other's name in the user-list and selecting File Transfer:

Nefsis then prompts for permission.

The File Transfer window opens, with separate panes for browsing local and remote computers.

The local user can stop the file transfer by closing the file transfer window.

File transfer is not restricted to shared folders; all folders on the remote computer are visible and accessible. Note that, for security reasons, the local user may not delete, edit or rename files on the remote PC.

Learn More

For more details on how to remote control a share, perform remote PC control and start a file transfer, refer to the Nefsis Online User Manual.

Free Trial

For a quick walk-through of Nefsis video conferencing and remote technical support capabilities, click schedule a live demo. You can also start a free trial right now, or contact us with any questions you may have.

Related Pages

User Manual — Complete Nefsis online user guide
Quick Start Movies — Nefsis quick start movies and tutorials