So, let’s talk about trouble tickets. New research from NetScout gives us some insights into the impact of video conferencing on IT professionals. Quoting liberally from TechRepublic.
According to NetScout’s findings, 72% of those polled said their businesses supported anywhere from three to nine virtual collaboration tools, and 20% said their companies used more than 10 of these platforms.
And it seems no one likes them.
Teams had just 67% of respondents recommending the platform, Zoom at 60%, and WebEx and Slack were even lower. Only Google Meet at 48% usage, and 52% recommendation rate came in with a net-positive score.
And a lot of that has to do with IT issues. Of those polled, 24% said they receive tickets multiple times per day about the platforms, while 26% said they received a ticket at least once daily. According to those surveyed, 56% said the tickets were resolved within a few hours, and just 4% of tickets submitted took longer than a day to resolve. The problem for IT professionals has been the volume of tickets submitted, as 36% of respondents said their organization receives more than 2,500 tickets daily. In comparison, 12% said their organization receives more than 5,000 tickets daily.
Top issues — configuring devices (48%), sharing screens for collaborative purposes (44%), system updates and maintenance (43%), poor webcam or video quality (37%), problems with joining video or audio conferences (37%), audio quality issues (31%) and login problems (31%).
IT providers love talking about trouble ticket data, and when there is actual concrete data, I’m happy to supply it.
I’m struck by two things here. First, supporting these tools isn’t necessarily easy, and they aren’t beloved. They are necessary, and leadership understands that, but they aren’t set and forget it.
Second, was this increase in IT load factored in by most organizations into their use of the tools? Considering how fast the uptake was, it’s logical to assume the answer is no.
That leads to the conclusion – savvy IT leaders are engaging their organizations and customers to incorporate the actual costs of the tools into their plans. I’m convinced that’s still a win for most organizations, but it doesn’t happen without planning.