Dallas, TX – NTRglobal will further consolidate its commitment to the managed services industry as a sponsor of MSPWorld 2011, a premier managed services and cloud computing event that addresses the most pressing channel and end-user issues facing managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers.

The event will feature NTRglobal’s CEO Gilles Samoun, who will join a panel of industry experts to explore managed security services in the cloud. Samoun explained, “Enterprise-level businesses adopted managed security services years ago, but now more small and medium-sized businesses are seeking this service to keep up with the growing number of regulatory requirements in place to protect personal data.”

Since Samoun’s appointment in 2009, NTRglobal has shifted its focus toward modular cloud-based solutions that deliver proven ROI while guaranteeing enterprise-class security and privacy through multilevel security safeguards. Recent developments include technology partnerships with leading managed service software providers including BMC, ConnectWise, N-able and Spiceworks.

Samoun added, “NTRglobal has worked closely with MSPs since 2001 to provide secure remote support and chat technologies designed to accelerate problem resolution and optimize overall support costs.”

MSPWorld will be held in Austin, Texas on September 13 and 14. NTRglobal will exhibit in Booth 1416.

Over the past three years I’ve received regular briefings from NTRglobal, which develops software for remote support. But I could never determine if NTRglobal was fully committed to managed services providers or merely dabbling in the market. Along the way NTRglobal has made management changes and strategy changes. Fast forward to the present and I suspect NTRglobal has finally sharpened its MSP focus. Here’s why.

From 2008 to 2010, NTRglobal seemed somewhat adrift to me — at least when it came to managed services market. The company served many markets but messaging into the managed services industry seemed to come and go. By March 2010, NTRglobal named a new CEO (Gilles Samoun) and prepared to launch “new on-demand solutions for IT automation.” Fast forward to the present and NTRglobal seems to be sharpening its focus on MSPs.

Recent Moves

In recent weeks, NTRglobal has announced integration work with ConnectWise and Spiceworks, respectively.

NTRglobal this week launched an integrated remote desktop support plug-in for the Spiceworks help desk. Designed for managed service providers (MSPs), the NTRglobal Remote Desktop for Spiceworks accelerates problem resolution, enhances customer experience and reduces overall support costs, NTRglobal claims. A 30-day trial is free; an annual license is $390, the company adds.

NTRglobal is also working more closely with ConnectWise. Earlier this month, ConnectWise unveiled a Chat & Remote Control, which provides chat, clientless remote control capabilities and automatic ticket generation within ConnectWise’s PSA (professional services automation) software. The solution, a joint development between ConnectWise and NTRglobal, offers:

• Chat-session tracking and recording.
• Clientless remote control for non-managed clients across Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Time capture for billing, SLA measurements and executive review.
• Secure communication, encryption and audit trail capabilities to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and other regulations.
• Broader chat capabilities to assist sales discussions, product training and more.

NTRglobal has worked in and around the managed services market for quite some time. NTRglobal claims “millions of users” rely on the company’s service and support software. And the NTRglobal-ConnectWise relationship predates the current announcement.

But given recent moves, I get the feeling that NTRglobal is sharpening its focus on MSPs.

Source: MSPmentor

Check out these stats derived from a survey of NTRglobal enterprise customers...how do your metrics compare? Do you want to improve your operational efficiencies and reporting?

• 30% of a contact center’s cost defined by FCR
• 50% of customer dissatisfaction stems from being passed from agent to agent
• 85% increase in repurchase intention from customers who are dealt with quickly and effectively

Why is First Contact Resolution Important?

“FCR is a driver for excellence in any support organization and has a powerful, positive ripple effect and impact on all of the other performance and financial metrics,” said Pete McGarahan, consultant at McGarahan and Associates. “Service organizations can create loyal, profitable customer relationships by quickly turning a problem into a solution on the first contact. NTRsupport is the tool utility belt for today’s help desk who is working hard to deliver quality services to happy customers cost-effectively.”

Increase First Call Resolution and Enhance New Business

"NTRsupport has changed the way we do business at Northbrook Consulting Group,” said Donald L. Joseph, president of Northbrook Consulting Group. “We are able to be more responsive to customer needs; reduce on-site sales and support visits, increase first time call resolution, improve customer service, and achieve our goal of using NTRsupport to gain new customers."

Using NTRsupport, IT support and help desk professionals can connect with customers and employees in seconds to resolve -technical support issues without the need for pre-installed software. NTR Cloud offers fully loaded support tools with advanced diagnostics, collaboration and reporting tools to accelerate problem identification and resolution on PC’s Macs or smartphones on-demand. These tools also include:

• Quality and silent monitoring for all media to enable optimal training and service delivery.
• End-of-call customer polling through agent script for specific incident review.
• Automated survey and follow up after customer contact to ensure customer satisfaction.

NTRsupport helps technicians virtually resolve more issues remotely, thus reducing backlog, level 2 escalations or worse, costly equipment returns.

Find out more about how NTR Cloud can help you enhance enterprise help desk metrics...

And don't just take our word for it, compare it free with your current solution: www.ntrglobal.com.
Then tell usabout the ROI...

We want to have bragging rights that you are "boring" your CIO with ROI.
Let us help you enhance your help desk and service desk quality and efficiency while cutting costs in 2011!

NTRglobal is a ConnectWise partner. Joe Panattieri just published this interesting article about his visit with ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini on 20 January 2011. Thanks for the mention!

"Provin says more and more support inquiries are shifting to online chat. The system leverages technology from NTRglobal…”

Read the whole post here:
http://www.mspmentor.net/2011/01/20/six-surprises-inside-the-halls-of-connectwise/

NTRglobal Invites You to make 2011 a year of Help Desk change for the better

Many enterprise help desk organizations still struggle with their legacy remote control tools and "cobbled together" approaches to 24/7 global help desk support. But most of these tools are not designed to meet the needs of today's IT help desk or the mobile workers that need remote support on demand. These legacy tools may not integrate into other systems. Incident reporting may be inaccurate. Time spent on incidents may not be properly accounted for...and in times when every resource is already streteched to the max, further budgets cut due to a lack of accurate reporting is a very real threat.

Today, the help desk needs a better way to manage to the realities of today's enterprise dynamics:

• Mobile and remote workers using a multitude of computing devices and operating systems including smarthones
• Leaner budgets than ever for help desk operations, yet business demands for greater help desk productivity and service quality.
• Varying, yet ever stricter security and compliance mandates for data management by region, by country

Legacy tools are simply not effective solutions for resolving technical support problems for the worker on the go or the remote-office teams. What if you could try a risk-free way to make 2011 the year you make help desk change for the better? We'd like to invite you to testdrive NTRsupport Ultimate software-as-a-service Free Trial, http://www.ntrglobal.com/ntrsupport fully loaded with diagnostics, workflow support, management and reporting capabilities. No training required. No capital expenditure or new hardware required.

We'd like you to prove to yourself how NTRsupport can provide instant measurable return on deployment...

Goodbye Legacy Remote Control! Happy Change for the Better in 2011 from NTRglobal!

In a recent call with NTRglobal CEO Gilles Samoun, Gartner analysts discussed their views about the Service Desk Market and the release of NTR Service Desk. In fact, Gartner is hearing from clients like you that 2011 is an important year, if not THE year, for a closer evalution of the benefits Service Desk SaaS. They report that the service desk market is poised for rapid growth in SaaS because traditional premise-based solutions are difficult to deploy, take too long to integrate or beg a rip approach which often relegates the project to ‘shelfware’ status. Gartner analyst David Coyle stated: “SaaS IT service desk tools are the viable alternative to traditional on-premises models. Integration between the SaaS IT service desk tool and other IT service management (ITSM) tools in the enterprise environment are key selection criteria. Moreover many IT departments defer essential upgrades to on-premise solutions because of the difficulty and cost of upgrades.”

How does the SaaS delivery model play into your 2011 plans?
What is top of mind about aligning ITSM process?
What are your main concerns, roadblocks to acomplishing ITSM audits such as?

• Growth and value, which involves tracking revenue growth against investment and utilization.
• Budget adherence, which involves optimizing the use of available funds and avoiding unnecessary expenditures.
• Risk impact, which involves identifying and evaluating the consequences of risks taken or avoided.
• Communication effectiveness, which involves examining customer feedback and gauging customer satisfaction and awareness.

What tools are you using or want to use to get the job done more efficiently?

NTR Service Desk addresses Gartner's recommendations, offering enterprise IT departments a new game plan with a modular approach. Check out the new release here: www.ntrglobal.com/service-desk. We'd like to hear from you. Contact me at hwieland@ntrglobal.com.

As we head into the holidays, we thought you'd like to hear what your peers have on their mind when it comes to gifts according to TechRepublic.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=6201

According to recent Gartner statistics focused on traditional Service Desk metrics, the cost to Customer 1’s company for traditional phone support for an eight-minute call costs the company between $18 - $23, and increases 75% in total cost as it is escalated to different technical levels for resolution within the organization. This does not include:

• The cost of losing customers due to wait times, frustration with service availability, and lack of support options.
• The cost of buying new customers to replace lost ones, which may run up to five times as according to American Management Association figures.

The business impact of having a long queue, long wait times and long times to resolve are in decreased customer satisfaction, customer defection and a bad reputation for providing ongoing service and support to your customers. This will eventually hurt your business especially based on customer referrals and word of mouth. Businesses have to look at the cost in losing a customer as well as the cost to attract a customer and the cost to retain a customer

Even worse, in 73% of cases, Customer 1’s organization makes no attempt to persuade dissatisfied customers to stay, even though 35% said that a simple apology would have prevented them from moving to the competition. The company’s support center does not have the ability to provide self-support, submit a ticket, Chat, or request the support agent view or take over their machine. They not have the right tool set to meet the customer’s expectations for providing world class support. They do not have NTRsupport.

Customer 2 contacts his service provider, who is able to validate the customer with the integrated CRM interface and quickly assess the situation. The agent asks permission to run a diagnostic, can share the customer’s screen to visualize the situation, and take remote control of the machine to administer a solution. He determines the root cause, applies the fix with a file transfer, reboots the machine and tests the functionality while the customer is on the line. The problem has been resolved quickly, seamlessly, and satisfactorily.

Another benefit to the company is that the interaction is recorded and stored for auditing and training purposes.

The cost to Customer 2’s company is less than $12 (based upon the remote agent cost per hour of $21 plus some overhead for tools, bandwidth, etc). The overall first contact resolution could have been accomplished in 15-20 minutes.

The rapid, successful interaction reduces customer defections and can boost profits anywhere from 25-85% claims Bain & Co. consultant Frederick Reichheld and Earl Sasser, Jr. (Harvard business professor and author of “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work”).

Questions? Comments? Talk to us on Twitter @NTRglobal or send me your thoughts directly at hwieland@ntrglobal.com

How NTRglobal solutions turn support operations into lead generation machines!

NTRglobal and ConnectWise are hearing from managed service partners small and large that customer acquisition is the top business priority for any IT service provider working in managed services today. In fact, according to research firm, AMI Partners, North American businesses want to add managed services at the CAGR of 28% over the next five years. What are the kinds of services you can easily add to take business growth to the next level?

On-demand remote support enables easy and affordable delivery of optimized help desk services – on platform or off. With full-featured online web chat and the power of clientless remote control, MSPs are bringing huge cost-savings to enterprises, boasting:

• Over 93% of issues resolved on first contact.
• More than 58% calls deflected by chat.
• 20% boost in operator productivity after a single month of usage; more than 50% in eight months
• 98% customer satisfaction ratings

Big customer service value, right? But what does is have to do with lead generation?

MSPs tell us that delivering break-fix (reactionary) support is still one of the leading revenue drivers for most MSP business. NTRglobal Service Desk and Help Desk solutions enable MSPs to use the break-fix support exchange as a new business-generating platform. How?

Four ways to transform simple problem resolution into business growth

1. Upsell. Deploy Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) agents on remote platforms and nontraditional devices while upselling proactive support services
2. Integrate. In less than a day NTR solutions can be integrated with:
   • Ticketing systems
   • Professional Services Automation tools (PSA)
   • Remote Monitoring and Management Services (RMM)
   • CRMs
   • ERPs
3. Cross-sell. Deliver training and sales presentations and live demos via outbound screensharing
4. Resell. Fast, effective problem resolution instantly wins fans, so NTR technology is an easy sell to downstream channels who can rebrand it.

By integrating NTRsupport with world-class partners such as ConnectWise, solution providers gain access to a breakthrough growth strategies. Partners around the world are expanding IT services at an affordable price while delivering services that keep clients happy.

What is helping you to grow your business? What are some of the issues? What other kinds of solutions would you like to integrate into your practice? Endpoint Security? Storage services in the Cloud? Are you able to accurately keep track of your work even when you are working off-platform?

Let us know by commenting here, tweeting us or sending me your thoughts at hwieland@ntrglobal.com

NTRglobal showcased new NTR Service Desk at Interop 2010 to resounding success and more news coming in daily! Interop was well attended and vibrant. We met customers and potential customers excited to see the preview of NTR Service Desk's modular "Grow as You Go" approach to adopting a more ITIL-based process. CRN publishers named NTR Service Desk one of the yearss top products! During one of the demos, Informationweek set up a camera outside our booth and engaged in an interview with NTRglobal Gilles Samoun!

At Interop in New York City this week, we are pleased to premier NTR Cloud Service Desk, the first of a series of ITIL-based SaaS modules for IT automation, system management and remote support. Offering a new game plan for slashing maintenance costs by up to 70 percent while extending secure reach to manage assets on demand, NTR Service Desk delivers a "go as you grow" approach for companies to adopt and extend what they need for augmenting process into the Service Desk when they need it.

With open APIs and integration connectors to hundreds of existing enterprise systems for CRM, HR, Ticketing, ERP, Accounting systems and central reporting, NTR Service Desk helps IT rapidly scale, manage and configure 1000s of assets with on-demand multi-browser, multi-platform support inside or outside of the corporate network. Fast, flexible, proven SaaS from the leading IT Cloud Services provider, NTR Service Desk offers IT a new platform-as-a-service to rapidly deploy, integrate and manage enterprise assets today with automatic cloud readiness for updates on demand.

Celebrating 10 years of service excellence delivering SaaS for the service desk and help desks for 17,000 large enterprises around the world...

NTR Service Desk is the next evolution...more than SaaS...now you have a platform that flexibly integrates in days with any enterprise application or system (ERP, SAP, HR, CRM, etc.) to give you the complete picture of your enterprise assets...all from a central web console.

• Reduces ITSM costs by more than 70%
• Built on ITIL with flexible integration hooks (via Pervasive) and open API's
• Fast time to production and deployment...auto upgrades and updates
• 10 years of proven, consistent SaaS
• Modular Go as You Grow Approach to the ITIL Service Desk

Free Trial: http://www.ntrglobal.com/service-desk

“The resolution time for delivering on-demand remote support with NTRsupport to a mutual customer a continent away, inspired our channel partner to adopt NTRglobal.”

The heat is on for IT support to manage if not “put out the fires” of the often escalated “back to business and back to school” service requests. With the increased workload, these challenges are especially unwelcome in today’s economic climate, when IT support teams are somehow expected to deliver a more responsive service while under constant pressure to reduce costs. But enteprise IT is finding a better way with on-demand IT automation and remote support. NTRglobal customer, Ken Schmidt, technical support manager at ExpeData, a global enterprise digital writing software company stated that though support to customers and partners worldwide is a challenge, NTRglobal software-as-a-service (SaaS) allows him to “virtually just do IT support, anytime, anywhere.”

“Using a remote support solution has become less a “nice to have” and more a mandatory part of business,” said Schmidt. “Difficult to describe problems become impossible to address when language barriers meet technology issues. Additionally, with time zones creating smaller windows, and with the expense of international calling, iterative processes can take days rather than hours. Providing a decision tree can be tedious, confusing, and overly complex. Being able to virtually just do IT support with NTRglobal more than halves the time to deliver support and provides better customer service.”

“A specific example of this”, added Schmidt, “is supporting our channel partner’s customer in Europe. They were having an issue installing our client application. Without a common language, remoting in was the only viable option. I used NTRglobal to take control of the customer’s computer. I then shared my screen with our channel partner. We used the chat functionality to tell the customer what to do with hardware for testing. We found out that the customer had an older version of our client software, so I used the FTP functionality to provide the update. I installed our app, triggered a reboot, reconnected, and then chatted with them to try the operation again. We were successful and spent less than an hour resolving our mutual customer’s issue. Interactions such as this actually inspired our partner to also become an NTRglobal customer.”

Our customers tell us that one of the main motivators for change to NTRglobal is cost savings and cost containment, which underscores the interest in using SaaS for remote support and IT systems management where travel is virtually eliminated. The second reason is that cloud computing allows our customers to do things that they otherwise couldn't do. For example, IT managers and channel partners can collaborate, deliver customer training and participate in reviews using NTRglobal cloud-provided applications that would have been otherwise cost- or prohibitive.

IT managers at global franchises and retail stores, are turning to NTRglobal software-as-a-service(SaaS) to troubleshoot technical support issues on remote computers located in stores far and wide. On-demand NTRsupport remote support and system management with NTRadmin from NTRglobal help businesses with distributed locations reduce costs associated with IT troubleshooting while delivering faster problem resolution and uptime.

According to Jonathan Butler, IT Manager at Scrubs and Beyond, a U.S. based retailer for quality medical scrubs, shoes and accessories for healthcare professionals, NTRsupport is a vital link between the staff at the remote stores and him. "I use NTRsupport to keep 27 retail clothing stores up and functioning. We have great managers and staff at all of our stores! But we hire them to be sales persons not computer experts. That said, NTRsupport is a vital link between me and their problems."

NTRsupport Helped IT Deliver the Correct Sales Data on Black Friday

When retail promotions and sale prices failed to update at all retail locations the night before Black Friday, Josh Fisher, IT manager at C28, a Christian clothing and accessory retail store chain, was confident he could rely on NTRsupport on-demand remote support to virtually resolve the issues. With NTRsupport, he could troubleshoot each location without the need to travel or hire local techs to troubleshoot onsite. Fisher, like tens of thousands of IT managers around the world, utilize next-generation remote support software-as-a-service (SaaS) with NTRsupport to remotely connect, interact and resolve detailed and complex technical support issues online in real time.

On-demand NTRsupport with installable remote control clients (IRCs) allow IT managers to support unattended servers, PCs, Macs and mobile devices, anytime, anywhere. NTRsupport IRCs helped Fisher to proactively support the remote computers at each of the C28 stores without the local users on hand.

“With stores opening in the early morning on Black Friday, I used NTRsupport secure remote support IRCs to remote into each retail location. Just a few clicks and I updated each retail database with the correct Black Friday promotions and prices. No staff wake up calls required, and no managers seeing red! NTRsupport helped save Black Friday for all those locations.”

NTRsupport enables IT to reach across the Web to establish highly secure support sessions. Customers experience fast and efficient support without having to go through multiple calls to diagnose problems. No more expensive onsite visits and downtime. With NTRsupport clients get immediate support and continue working.

Franchise business owner, Bruce LeGendre of Computer Troubleshooters, 1001 Northwest, a leading computer services company, that provides pc repair and other services to small businesses worldwide, reviewed several remote access and remote support solutions, but selected NTRglobal as the best choice. “Not 24 hours after making this decision, I had a long-time customer call with what he thought were malware issues. After logging in and seeing the number of toolbars, it was a simple matter of cleaning out the browser cache and removing some pesky toolbars .My customer thought I had performed a miracle without having set foot in his place across town! The interface is easy to walk a customer through and certainly allows me another option for serving my clients.”

Customers tell me that one of the first steps they want to take to show their CIOs meaningful ROI is to measure customer satisfaction in relation to staff efficiency ...and to find an effective way to enhance first contact resolution. First contact resolution is key because it impacts or eliminates backlog and internal or external customer satisfaction (c-sat) which in turn can impact customer loyalty and repeat business.

To enhance first contact resolution, we need to deliver support when and where people need it most.

Which means instantly. Today end users are working on site, or at remote offices in Web-connected and often collaborative environments on a variety of platforms and operating systems. They are working on applications on laptops, desktops, netbooks and smartphones that offer several ways for people to connect and interact on line via chat, Skype, etc. These online channels are often pervasive, immediately visible and instantly available with a click of the mouse.

But for IT and help desk service providers, a common reaction and "out of process" way ;for workers onsite to get support is a walk if not a run over to the help desk for "drive by troubleshooting" or if the IT Pro is at a nearbye station...the user may cry out "can you help me for a sec and I promise to put in a help ticket later?"

Mea culpa! We know this is inefficient as requests can´t be logged effectively much less resolved upon first contact. IT reporting time and accountability evaporates and resolving these kinds of requests becomes frustrating and seemingly complex for both the end user and IT.

For end users in remote locations, the requests may come to IT and help desk managers by email or chat, phone or any number of modes other than the process that IT needs and requires. First contact resolution is now down for the count while again frustration mounts for both IT and the end user.

But imagine if an end user in any Windows application such a CAD program or a spreadsheet or proprietary Windows programs for healthcare, insurance and other financial services, education, legal...could click on a small icon that gives instant access to the help desk and IT support team without leaving the app in question. Imagine the help desk getting the request from the appropriate channel process and knowing instantly which app needs to be addressed.

That is exactly what new NTRsupport Direct Support for Applications (DSA) can do. NTRsupport DSA offers access to the live help desk and IT pro with a click of the mouse. The enduser does not need to exit the application to hunt and search for the right way to contact support.This makes connecting to support an instant process. NTRsupport DSA helps IT to create a seamless, hassle-free way to deliver support in a contextual way and thus increase first contact resolution with the first connection.

With NTRsupport DSA:

• Customers can just simply click on a help icon in any Windows application (or desktop) on their computers
• You can identify your customers when they request help.
• Eliminate redundant time to evaluate who your customer is and qualify the customer´s request.
• Automatically retrieve useful information before responding to help requests directly from requests.
• Identify all your support requests by a code or name.

NTRsupport DSA is available today. Contact your NTRglobal account manager to learn more or visit the NTRglobal Website at http://www.ntrglobal.com.

Exceptional customer service must be the backbone of businesses in today's tough climate. But the good news is that innovative technology and communication processes are available that are easy to adopt and require no capital outlay. Now the challenge of providing high touch customer service has never been easier while also dramatically reducing operational costs and enhancing customer satisfaction. These next generation support solutions add the vital "human element" to communication with customers and create a new level of attention that ultimately improves client retention and loyalty. The right remote support solution can make this possible.

NTRglobal is a worldwide SaaS company that is making it easier for help desk and IT managers to deliver instant remote support to customers and their employees, including mobile workers, employees in satellite offices, Web commuters at home and teleworkers in the extended enterprise. NTRglobal provides the highest level of security (AES 556-bit encryption) and reliability for on-demand remote support and on-demand remote systems administration across more platforms than any other solution currently available, including Windows Vista, Windows Mobile, Mac Leopard and Linux. NTRsupport breaks down the barriers of communication and helps build a better customer experience.

Today, technology is pervasive in all aspects of most people's professional and personal lives. The dramatic increase in the adoption of devices, laptops and other computing devices has allowed increases in productivity and efficiency. However, these increases have not come without a cost. When a problem occurs, customers, employees or partners generally are not able to fix it themselves and must turn to professional support for help. And because of today's on-demand economy, technical issues are underscored with a sense of urgency to resolve the problem quickly or lose valuable business opportunity. The pressure is magnified by the increasing challenges that support staffs face coupled with the dramatic rise in the number of mobile workers over recent years.

The convergence of these forces increase the complexity and challenges IT faces. With ever tighter compliance and security mandates you are probably trying to prioritize better ways to "manage the seemingly unmanageable" diversity of network connected devices and applications.  And perhaps concerns about security, performance and the unknown-makes it seem too daunting to take on one more thing.

But SaaS for remote support and customer service offer benefits that have evolved beyond the initial target market of IT service and help desk support services to deliver profitable value added services.  According to IDC's research director, Matt Healy, the benefits of the solution come from being able to geographically decouple IT personnel from the task they need to complete. By doing this, organizations can effectively "virtualize" and "automate" repetitive tasks in their IT departments and see a wider range of benefits.

Best of breed support for customers and employees, including cost-cutting solutions such as remote support, enables small business to act on par with large enterprise on a global scale and perhaps differentiate based on service quality. Large organizations can benefit by automating repetitive lower level tasks to redeploy valuable engineering hours to focus on core competencies and issues that contribute to the bottom line.

Remote support via SaaS provides a free evaluation trial for you to actually utilize the service before you buy. Test for yourself how IT support and service capabilities can work for your organization, and perhaps discover innovative revenue-generating profitable services that transform into competitive advantage.

To survive in today's tough economic climate, many businesses, whether established, new or global, will be looking to drive efficiency and reduce costs in the months ahead. Coupled with budget cuts, staffing challenges and dwindling resources, operations will be impacted more than ever before. But, at the same time, keeping your customers satisfied is more critical than ever.

The emergence of virtual support

During the last recession, technology was in its infancy with the Internet being used as a place for email, chat and ecommerce. Now it offers business software on-demand for the same price or less then your monthly mobile bill, meaning that company size no longer determines the reach or rate of business growth.

With virtual, anytime, anywhere, internet-based applications businesses can prioritise which geographic markets to sell to that were previously unreachable and unprofitable in the past. Even small companies can now deliver services to customers and partners in distant places. Communication can increase and training and technical support can all be provided remotely over the web. All of these are real capabilities that can reduce or eliminate onsite travel, minimise downtime and optimise productivity for customers and overworked IT staff. Importantly, the web is all changing the way customer support is delivered.