Connecting with Customers

One of my favorite customer support tools has been the one that lets me see the other user's display as they see it. Whether it was Timbuktu or Funk Proxy. PC Anywhere, not so much. During the current PC Replacement project we are installing Windows Vista and Office 2007, so we're going to need a tool like this more than ever. Unfortunately there is not a third party system that is certified to work with Vista yet, so it looks like we are going to go with the built in remote assistant. Great. To accept a connection the user has to have admin rights, which we do not grant users. Maybe with Beyond Trust we will be able to have this specific application launch with the correct user rights, but it is still going to be a lot of extra steps that we did not have to do before. sigh. I would hate to have to go back to the way we did it nearly twenty years ago by getting the user to completely describe what is happening on their screen. Very time consuming, even if entertaining. Instructing how to use a new function in Office 2007 is going to be easier when I can see their display. And if the customer is hundreds of miles away, as some of our employees are, it helps us on both sides to get the problem solved immediately.