I was, on the phone trying to talk a non IT person through setting up a remote connection, and we were basically going round in circles. A frustrating situation for me however even more frustrating for the customer.

I needed a decent remote access system and I needed a decent job tracking system so work can be planned and prioritised.

I’ve used a number of different ticketing systems ranging from spreadsheets, customised CRM, customised SharePoint, Custom Built, the dreaded shared e-mail inbox and now cloud based.

Search the internet for remote support tools and you will find there are a heap to choose from and test. There are some very good options out there however there are not many that combine a remote support system for unattended devices with a full service desk. That is what GoToAssist does very well.

Here are some of the the features and benefits that have provided me with value so far:

• The remote support aspect of GoToAssist ticked all the boxes for us especially the ability to take control of unattended computers and also to build an inventory record of connected machines.
• Incidents is the main area to log issues and refer to tickets with customers
• Problems are those annoying issues that are reoccurring and need root cause analysis to solve. Incidents are linked to Problems.
• The Change area for projects that are outside of support but have jobs linked to them. Changes have Tasks that are assigned to team members. This area I am experimenting with as a project and program management tool.
• Knowledge area for documenting solutions and resolutions to our issues as well as “how to” manuals. Documenting processes is very important and linking them to solved problems and incidents helps speed up issues resolution.
• Customer portal is for internal and external customers to log jobs and monitor progress as well as add more information.
• Customers can log jobs via e-mail or the portal and the conversation is kept in the system so technicians and customers can follow the work history. Auto responses to the customer keep let them know the job has been logged which is an important communication tool. Technicians are also notified by e-mail.
• Reports to drill into 20% of issues causing 80% of the calls for that root cause analysis to cut down or reoccurring problems.

If you are into ITIL then the system is built for that framework too, however you can pick and choose what you want to use and how to use it.

The system can be configured for internal and external customers and linked to Active Directory to ease user setup. The GoToAssist support team are an excellent resource to call on during the trial period to make sure their customers are using the system correctly and have post implementation support.

For ease of remote support, without frustration, and keeping customers up to date with progress, tracking jobs and solving problems, GoToAssist with Service Desk is an excellent solution and can be used for for more than IT businesses.

Click here to get access to a free evaluation.

This video gives a full overview of how GoToAssist works.

Disclaimer:  Years ago I signed up as a referrer for the GoTo products  seeing as I’ve used them successfully for years. In fact, I won’t recommend any product on my blog unless I have first hand experience that it works well.