Help Desk Services

Progent's remote IT support services are structured around a successful Help Desk model developed and refined during the course of more than two decades of providing remote online network support and troubleshooting to businesses throughout the U.S. The Help Desk service delivery model adopted by Progent gives small businesses an effective alternative to dependence on freelance consultants by offering extensive technical knowledge shared by nationwide support teams, escalation capability to subject matter experts (SMEs) for solving the most complex problems, service consistency and dependability, prompt follow through and accountability enforced by an enterprise-class ticketing, a variety of convenient mechanisms for initiating service tasks, plus status tracking via a web-based portal.

Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC)
Every day, hundreds of clients receive Help Desk support from Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC), which has provided IT troubleshooting and consulting assistance to small and mid-size businesses in every state in the U.S. The sheer volume of successful service transactions has made it possible for Progent's IT support teams to refine service delivery processes, develop a high level of efficiency in using the system, and create a growing, shared database of successful procedures and relevant technical information.

As with all effective Help Desks, Progent's Technical Response Center is software powered and knowledge driven. Progent's sophisticated Help Desk application software ensures that trouble tickets are automatically generated and allows both support personnel and customers to track the progress of jobs from initialization to closeout. Clients are never left up in the air as to what is being done by whom to follow through on their problems. When a trouble ticket is closed, a full report of all services performed is generated and automatically sent to the client and added to Progent's support database.

Progent's extensive service reporting generates and organizes detailed documentation for all delivered services and compiles valuable metrics on service quakity. Progent Technical Response Center staff has full access to the details of support delivered by online service experts as well as by onsite consultants. This database of problems and resolutions is arranged as a readily accessible internal database that allows Progent's Technical Response Center to share their experiences company-wide to ensure that the efficiency of Progent's remote support services continually expands. This support history also eliminates your company's dependence on a single engineer by allowing any Progent expert to take up where another stopped while saving hours wasted getting familiar with your IT environment.

Progent's Virtual Office environment connects Progent's remote support professionals across the U.S. in a seamless service network that provides easy and dependable access to information technology expertise. This enables Progent to escalate complex problems quickly to appropriate experts. Progent's Virtual Office infrastructure makes it possible to mobilize available high-skill personnel quickly, and Progent is one of the few support organizations that offers the general public fast online access to Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers.

Features of Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC)
Progent's Technical Response Center adheres to proven Help Desk processes and procedures designed to ensure that support jobs are convenient for clients to initiate and modify, assigned to appropriate engineers, resolved promptly and efficiently, managed from beginning to end, thoroughly and accurately documented, and made easy to track by the customer and by Progent's service managers. The TRC's high degree of automation, extensive operational experience, and world-class technical expertise allow Progent's client's to save money and time by minimizing service minutes and maximizing network uptime.

Specific features of Progent's TRC service delivery include:

• Customers can initiate a service request via the method with which they have the most comfort: email, phone call, or web portal
• The TRC generates a trouble ticket if a customer's problem is not resolved immediately.
• All trouble tickets are assigned due-by dates. Any change in the due date requires an explanation and generates an alert to the client and to Progent's service managers.
• Ongoing accounts can be assigned to designated engineers or support teams familiar to Progent's client and experienced with the client's network environment.
• With new clients, web-based Technical Support Requests always generate a ticket.
• When a ticket is initiated, a confirmation email is generated and a resource coordinator looks at details of the request and assigns it to appropriate services group.
• Confirming emails are sent to the client for opening a ticket, closing a ticket, changes in status, addition of technical information, and changes in due date (along with a reason for the change).
• Clients are always sent a service report.
• A client's authorized agents can utilize the web portal into the TRC system in order to enter new requests, get a quick view of outstanding requests, and look at the help requests made by every member of the client's company.
• Billing for TRC support is by the minute, with no setup fees or time minimums. Clients pay only for services received and avoid big invoices for quick fixes.

Realistically, freelance consultants are often unavailable due to other support jobs, illness, vacations, or various other reasons. Occasionally they move out of town, take fulltime jobs, or even get in a disagreement that breaks the relationship. All these circumstances could, in case of a technical emergency, result in an expensive loss of network availability that can far exceed the cost of a few hours of extra service time.

Progent's TRC group often works in conjunction with local freelance consultants to provide small businesses with a cost-effective mix of hands-on support along with the advantages of the TRC group's enterprise-class expertise. Progent's TRC group can offer small businesses benefits that are difficult if not impossible for independent freelance consultants to provide on their own. These benefits include:

• Progent's TRC service is consistent and at a high level thanks to large, expert support teams
• Trouble tickets are monitored and managed by professional service managers to make sure that no jobs fall through the cracks
• Prompt and effective escalation of problems is possible because of the availability of world-class engineers including Cisco-certified CCIEs
• Trouble tickets are efficiently dispatched to the appropriate support teams so that the people who are most capable are assigned to solve the problem
• Progent's internal support databases are growing continually and are available to help personnel to solve problems quickly and effectively
• The TRC web portal makes it easy for clients to track the progress of a job ticket or add new tasks without having to contact a consultant personally
• Full documentation is provided for all services performed so that you know what you paid for, have a realistic basis for future IT support budgets, and have the freedom at any time to turn over support responsibilities to another support organization or assume them in-house