How to choose the best remote support solution for your company?

A remote support solution is a smart remote connection that improves your company’s productivity, enhances equipment maintenance, and provides easy technical support and comprehensive materials for training.

The above is more than empty words: Forrester, ABI Research, and many more have found that remote support solutions are genuinely productive and improve customer satisfaction.

If you are also looking to advance and develop your company’s business, keep reading.

 

Remote support solution benefits

As digitalization and new technologies continue to spread, employees can be left lacking in knowledge and skills. Industrial production equipment may be more complex to use or field workers may fail to find solutions to new problems. In these situations, a versatile remote connection is priceless.

A remote support solution is simply perfect for companies whose functions are distributed all over a country or even the world. When field workers and experts can connect from anywhere at any time, the technical support required by employees is always available.

In practice, the expert can see a live video feed of what the worker sees in the field. The expert can provide instructions remotely, including annotations, which are drawn on top of the video feed. If the worker has connected their smart glasses in advance, they can use both hands for technical work.

A very valuable feature is the recording of the instruction videos in the cloud, which allows the instructions to be used later for similar issues and worker orientation.

Remote support solution benefits in a nutshell:

• Lower travel expenses and labor costs, less downtime
• Better productivity
• Environmentally friendly; less printed material and emissions from travel
• Improved safety at work, fewer interruptions, reduced need to leave workstations
• More versatile use of workers and experts
• Inexperienced workers can take on more demanding tasks sooner
• Experiential learning; more effective than simply reading manuals
• Acquisition of tacit knowledge
• Faster new worker training
• Better customer experience

 

Read about how your company can use a remote support solution!

 

Differences in remote support solutions

There are many remote support solutions on the market, each with a different background. One of the lighter platforms was founded by a neurosurgeon who originally needed one for their personal use. Today, that same remote connection serves 50,000 other customers and is freely available online.

For many solutions, there are many providers, from small start-ups to huge corporations like Microsoft. Many software development companies routinely work with other digital solutions, such as cloud services, smart glasses, augmented reality, and various embedded systems.

There are two categories for remote support solutions: lightweight apps and robust integrated solutions. The lightweight options can be downloaded onto mobile devices from Apple App Store and Google Play, for example.

Their streamlined nature is often their Achilles heel. If the product is imprecise, the connection unreliable, or the security lacking, the great benefits of a remote support solution are lost.

In a robust implementation, the remote support solution is integrated into your company’s operations. The information security will also be state-of-the-art.

The Softability XReach remote support solution is one such robust platform. It is a fully customizable remote connection for companies that offers cloud services, augmented reality, and smart glasses functionality.

 

What is the best remote support solution for your company?

How can you tell which remote support solution is the best choice?

The main objective is to find a remote connection platform that fits the activities and processes of your business – it should be easy to customize.

It is also important that data is easily discoverable when needed. Should your company face a certain problem again, you will have readily available data to use, which naturally saves time and money. You can also use your collected data to train new employees.

Remote support solutions must be absolutely reliable in all circumstances. Solid remote connections can survive rainstorms, wind, dust, heat, and cold.

A very good modern addition is the use of smart glasses. The popularity of smart glasses is rising, and their versatility has been recognized in education, for example. Smart glasses make for an unbeatable combination with a remote support solution, as this leaves both of the user’s hands free for work. Remember to make sure that the remote support solution is compatible with smart glasses.

Also verify that the remote support provider will provide support for both the pilot of the remote support solution and later, so you can maximize the benefits. What could be better than a workforce inspired by a solution that improves work and business performance.

 

Tips for choosing a remote connection platform

Start by considering the fundamental reason why your company needs to find a new type of technical support. You probably have a preliminary idea about how a remote support solution could help your business.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic led you to discover how you need to predict and prevent disruptions caused by crises?

Is your company looking to stay up-to-date and equip its field workers with flexible solutions and new technology?

Is your objective simply to avoid unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming industrial downtime?

Whatever your reason, there is a solution on the market for your needs. When choosing a suitable service provider, consider the following:

• Where does the remote support solution store its data?
• How secure is the data?
• Is the data readily usable by your company?
• How does the solution fit your company’s operations, including processes and information architecture?
• How customizable is the solution for its target environment?
• Is the solution’s user interface usable in difficult conditions, such as hot, cold, humid, dusty, or noisy environments?
• Is the solution compatible with smart glasses (leaving both hands free for work)?
• Does your organization acquire information about problems in installation and maintenance?
• Can the remote answers and solutions to frequent problems be recorded easily?
• Can the information from resolved situations be reused in case of reoccurring issues?
• Can the remote support solution be seamlessly integrated into your company’s operations?
• Will the remote support solution provider give their full support to your employees during the pilot and later in production?

 

Softability can help you choose the best remote support solution

Remote support solutions should not be chosen lightly – careful consideration should be afforded to the type of remote connection optimal for your company’s current and future business.

If you find it difficult to choose, we are happy to help. We specialize in sophisticated software solutions, and design and implement smart software and user-friendly digital solutions for industrial and medical applications, among others.

Our XReach remote support solution is currently breaking through in Europe, South America, and Asia. We have comprehensive expertise in more than remote support solutions, and we also offer the following:

• Cloud services
• Software development
• Embedded systems
• Quality assurance
• Extended reality (XR), including
  • Augmented reality (AR)
  • Mixed reality (MR)
  • Virtual reality (VR)
• Smart glasses, including VR and AR glasses

 

We will be happy to discuss XReach with you. Whether you are drawn to the price of XReach or its practical performance, contact us so we can talk about it!

Tapio Pukkala, Solution Sales, +358 40 718 0514, tapio.pukkala(at)softability.fi

Mikko Luukkonen, Solution Sales, +358 50 554 3652, mikko.luukkonen(at)softability.fi

Keywords:

etätukiratkaisu remote support remote support solution smart glasses XReach