PC Helps: Help Desk Extension for MSPs, Enterprise Customers

Brian_Madocks

“Primarily, we are an extension of existing help desks,” Madocks said. “Clients have approached us about being a full help desk and not just an extension, and that’s growing nicely within our base. But we want to continue to deliver a highly repeatable service.” Here’s how that highly repeatable help desk extension service works.

PC Helps give each customer a toll-free support line that integrates into their main help desk phone menu. Then, PC Helps Certified Computer Consultants answer each of these calls in two rings or less. These consultants help customers with application problems, migrations, resolutions and more. PC Helps can also use a customer’s information to re-create a user scenario to show that user how they can fix their problem. The company then sends that replica environment to end-users complete with step-by-step instructions of how to solve their network problems.

“We tend to focus on solutions and applications that are very standard and are very highly deployed,” Madocks said. According to Madocks, PC Helps’ services give help desk providers a number of added benefits.

BYOD Drives Accelerating Business for PC Helps

Most recently, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement in the workplace has help accelerate demand for PC Helps’ services among traditional help desks. Remember, PC Helps focuses on the enterprise, which is where BYOD is seen most heavily.

“In our business, we are providing iPad and/or mixed mobile support for a number of large and mid-size enterprises, and we are handling their help desk calls specific to these devices, and we’ve seen the volume and types of support calls coming in. These companies needed additional resources to support the volume of calls to the help desk.  If they decline to support those calls, the help desk risks becoming a resource of declining value in the organization.”

Madocks said that many businesses think BYOD  and consumerization means end users need less support because they are choosing their own device. But PC Helps believes the opposite. According to Madocks, the company has seen help desk calls increase since the emergence of BYOD, and that many of the calls have been BYOD and/or consumerization-related.

PC Helps and the Channel

PC Helps plans to extend its number of end-users during 2012 by developing a channel partner program. Madocks said he plans to use the channel to make PC Helps services more accessible to enterprise companies that want self-help, and to other who have general troubleshooting questions. The company also plans to target more managed service providers.

“Regarding the relevance of PC Helps to MSPs, we believe our service offering can extend and compliment the offerings of certain MSPs, particularly those in the mobile device management (MDM) arena, or related,” Madocks said. “We can provide the added service of specialized, expert support for end-users in environments where MSPs are providing tech support and management.”