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Imagine boosting the productivity of your IT department with one simple twist. Allow a single IT professional to assist multiple users at once without ever leaving his or her office.
Better yet, imagine a single IT department in Austin, the Silicon Valley or Singapore. Then imagine this IT department updating software and troubleshooting technical problems all over the world.
Scale this down to a single IT entrepreneur. With the right technology, he or she runs an IT service from a spare room or a small office in Sarasota, Florida, Detroit, Michigan or Saskatchewan. But this single IT professional working alone fills the technical needs of businesses with offices in New York, London and Buenos Aires.
Guess what? This technology already exists. And it gives your small business an edge creating new opportunities you might never have thought possible.
Read on for a closer look at Zoho Assist. Learn more about the remote access software changing the game in IT and beyond.
How it Works
First, Zoho Assist was launched in 2009. So the software boasts 15 years of success as a remote access tool for businesses.
The technology includes three basic components: remote support, unattended access and the self service portal . First, we explore these components in greater depth to discover how they work together to improve small business productivity.
Remote Support
Think of remote support as the core functionality of this beneficial software.
“Say an IT admin gets a call from the organization’s internal employee with a technical issue,” says Steffi J, Product Marketer for Zoho Assist. “The technician can initiate a remote support sessionwith the employee and start troubleshooting right away.”
Forget the old days when a tech problem meant the IT person visiting an employee’s cubicle taking up both peoples’ time until the issue was solved.
And of course any other employees with trouble in the meantime needed to wait their turn or tie up another IT person in the department.
With remote support, an IT administrator just fields multiple problems at once from his or her own computer.
Plus your IT department in Cincinnati now handles tech problems at offices in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Kansas City without needing to be there.
Oh, and think about our hypothetical one man or one woman IT team. We’re talking here about an IT professional who decides to go it alone. He or she sets up a small business providing IT services – and not just to businesses in his own backyard.
With remote support, this solopreneur solves computer and network problems for clients across the state, across the country or around the world.
“There are many individual IT users who serve as a one-person IT team, managing everything on their own” said Ambrish V, Product Marketer for Zoho Assist.
The software even includes a billing feature for these small IT businesses to invoice their clients.
Unattended Access
With a typical remote access session, an employee or client needs to be present at their computer while an IT administrator accesses his or her device.
But Zoho Assist offers other features allowing the IT team to update software and provide other maintenance. And it allows them to do these updates even when employees step away from their computers.
“Say the same IT admin wants to run a security patch or a software update. The IT admin can access the unattended devices under the organizationto run the software update with zero downtime,” says Steffi J.
Pretty cool, huh?
So this means a maintenance cycle can be run after hours or at night by a remote IT team. It also means your team doesn’t need to sit around waiting for a software update during peak work hours.
Just make sure your IT department pre-installs the unattended access agent on all your devices.
This ensures you are good to go.
A Look at the self service portal
The self service portal functions as the heart and soul of Zoho Assist. It reduces wait times for customers – or employees.
It does this by creating an ingenious system to alert the IT team and address problems as they arise.
Say you have a team member with a big problem. Let’s call him Fred! Fred works in sales. He experiences trouble with the team’s video conferencing software.
Fred knows a big call with a potential client is coming up and needs the video conferencing software working pronto.
Enter Zoho Assist’s self service portal.
Fred sends a request through the self-service portal.
This request comes in the form of a URL which an IT admin can either pick up themselves or assign to another technician.
The self-service portal allows the IT department to provide quick remote assistance and resolve problems quickly.
So Fred’s video conferencing software works great when he calls that potential client to clinch the sale.
Why Zoho Assist Works for SMBs
Zoho Assist empowers IT teams and others to help employees or customers remotely. This allows technicians in Seattle, for example, to help employees or clients in, say, Philadelphia or Atlanta in real time.
But understand this doesn’t mean the software is only used by enterprise clients.
In fact, more than half of Zoho Assist users employ fewer than 100 people making it clear the software is a small business favorite.
So what makes Zoho Assist so popular with SMBs?
Numerous reasons spring to mind.
Ease of Use
Small businesses ask great versatility of their employees and teams. You find employees at SMBs often wearing multiple hats.
So expect the person in charge of helping other team members with technical problems to have other things on his or her plate.
Zoho Assist offers quick, intuitive setup with no steep learning curve.
And Zoho created a simple interface for easy navigation.
Small businesses need software that simply works. They lack the resources to assemble a team simply to figure out installation of a new software.
And a small IT team or single IT technician running a small IT services business needs to focus on closing deals, helping customers and providing great service.
So forget hours, days or even weeks spent trying to figure out the software they need to provide that service.
Implementation and Adoption in a Flash
SMBs need a quick roll out. Most rely on steady cash flow. They lack the reserves of larger enterprise businesses.
So they require new software to be installed quickly. They need to avoid any hault in operations that might interrupt their revenue stream.
To call deployment of Zoho Assist fast seems like an understatement. The software deploys in minutes.
And remember about that short learning curve? That means team members pick the software up with limited training.
This equals more productive work time for your team and less time learning a new system.
Works Across Microsoft Windows, Android, MacOS and More
Talk about format agnostic.
If you already use Zoho Assist but plan to switch from Microsoft Windows to MacOS, for example, no worries.
The software works the same over these platforms and more.
Say you are an entrepreneur just starting out. You wait to decide on Zoho Assist because you think you need to make a decision on your other technology first.
For example, you need to decide between Microsoft Windows and Linux for your operating system. If you choose Microsoft Windows, you plan to go with Android on mobile devices.
Go ahead and lock in Zoho Assist for your remote support system. It works with all of these.
But also consider it probably works with the systems of your customers too.
Take another hypothetical scenario. Elaine owns an IT service business that troubleshoots technical issues for small clients and three or four large clients all over town.
Each time a client calls, Elaine’s technicians need to brave midday traffic to visit that client in person.
This reduces productivity at Elaine’s company because of time lost with employees out of the office either crossing town to see clients or in their offices fixing problems.
Elaine hears of a remote support solution. It allows her technicians to stay in the office and troubleshoot remotely, sometimes helping multiple clients at once.
But Elaine worries. Two of her larger clients use MacOS, two more use Microsoft Windows. And smaller clients use everything from Raspberry Pi to Chromebook to Linux.
She needs a remote access software that can work with all of these.
Fortunately, Zoho Assist does just that and allows each of her technicians to take calls from multiple clients at once.
Adheres to Zoho’s Privacy Philosophy
Regular Zoho customers already know the company’s commitment to privacy.
But when you plan to work remotely over multiple networks or access a customer’s computer system, privacy becomes doubly important.
Zoho Assist provides end-to-end encryption on all its 8.82 million remote sessions and 7.12 million unattended sessions (for security patches, updates etc.)
This means each of these sessions is secure and businesses need not worry about internal data or the data of their clients.
Zoho Assist also complies with all privacy regulations for data protection. So proudly give your client these assurances too.
Mobile App, Session Recording, AI Chat and More
All the features of Zoho Assist come in a mobile application on Android and iOS too. This allows your team to offer remote support on the go as well.
Other features include session recording so that you can review support sessions at a later time.
AI powered chat also helps speed up communications between technician and customer. Communications can also be stored for later audit.
Multi-authentication security and branding tools to personalize your support software round out some additional features.
Integrations
Zoho Assist integrates internally with other Zoho apps including SalesIQ, CRM, Flow Desk, Bookings, Mail and more.
Externally, the tool integrates with Zendesk, Slack, LiveChat, Freshdesk and more.
Exciting Live Camera Augmented Reality Assistance
IT support remains one of Zoho Assist’s “bread and butter” markets, says Ambrish V, Product Marketer for Zoho.
Still, other exciting uses, including features like live camera AR, tantalize with their possibilities.
The live camera AR feature allows technicians in one location to view technology or equipment in another. They then diagnose a problem or recommend solutions using arrows on a grid superimposed over the video to do so.
For example, a major tractor and farm equipment dealer in India uses the technology to help clients. When they experience a problem with a piece of machinery, farmers prefer being talked through a fix.
“Rather than having an external technician coming in and doing the mechanic work, they prefer getting the tools out and working on their own tractors and engines and fixing it for themselves,” said Ambrish V.
So technicians are able to use the Zoho AR feature, called Lens, to first diagnose the problem and then show the farmer – using Augmented Reality – exactly how to make the repair.
Imagine how you might use such a feature in your small business.
Leading the Way in Work-From-Home
Clients In the banking sector use Zoho Assist in yet another way.
Here unattended access allows IT professionals located offsite to do regular updates and repairs when necessary. This parallels some of the uses in the IT sector.
But these businesses also use unattended access to allow employees to access their computers while working from home. So these businesses use the technology to make mobile working easier.
Similarly, Zoho clients in the education sector use unattended access to allow students to work remotely with proprietary software.This gives students the opportunity to test and use software previously only available on campus from the privacy of their own homes.
Finally, Ambrish V discusses a radio disc jockey who used Zoho Assist to run regular broadcasts from home using the software installed at his station.
While working from home, the radio jockey connected to the device at the station, listened to each track using a remote audio feature and kept the program running using only a remote device and a home computer.
Testimonials
Businesses already using Zoho Assist happily share how the tool has changed their businesses for the better.
Rose City Tech, headquartered in the Portland, Oregon metro area, manages IT for restaurants and office spaces throughout the Pacific Northwest.
“Zoho Assist makes it super simple for us to manage and troubleshoot devices remotely, increasing our productivity and efficiency across multiple locations,” CEO Colin Fracasso-Boone explains.
Meanwhile, The Greatship Group owns four oil rigs and 19 offshore vessels in the Arabian Sea. The company uses Zoho Assist’s unattended access feature allowing technicians to perform needed software updates and security patches. Technicians perform the upgrades to the ships’ computer systems from a remote location without need for downtime.
Use Zoho Assist in Your Business
Think about how to use this powerful tool in your business.
Maybe you offshored your IT to India or the Philippines. With Zoho Assist, your IT team acquires the ability to work from anywhere.
They respond quickly to your employees’ calls and troubleshoot issues from thousands of miles away. They even update your software when your employees are away from their computers.
Maybe you rent office space but like to work from home from time to time. Or maybe you want to be able to retrieve data at any time day or night without going in.
Today Zoho Assist allows you to access your office computer with a laptop or mobile device whenever you wish. This means you can access your computer at the office even when home for the day or on a weekend getaway.
Finally, maybe your business helps clients and customers make repairs to their cell phones or computers. Now this service becomes easy to deliver – even over hundreds or thousands of miles. Use Zoho Lens and its virtual reality tool to show clients exactly how to fix their devices.
For all these uses and more, Zoho Assist proves a good fit for small businesses. Click here to learn more.
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