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Information technology professional services and products supplier CMIT Solutions announced the launch of what the company claims is the world’s first co-managed service desk, the CMIT Service Center, a simple Web interface for submitting issues and tracking progress.
The company argues it can help those SMBs (small to medium-size businesses) that constantly struggle to identify, report and fix technology-related problems.
CMIT Service Center’s most distinguishing feature is its direct link to CMIT Solutions’ technicians. When an issue arises, information is routed directly to CMIT Solutions. The company said this transfer of information fosters business continuity as data related to the technology problem is shared between internal and external IT support. Individual tickets can be automatically routed using the built-in workflow automation engine or manually escalated. In addition, a Web-based employee access portal gives SMB employees the ability to submit and track service requests.
“As head counts shrink and budgets tighten, America’s business owners want to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of their technology systems,” said CMIT’s President and CEO Jeff Connally. “We designed CMIT Service Center to meet the needs of today’s SMB owners. When technology issues arise, they want to minimize downtime and streamline the reporting and repair process.”
Additionally, the company’s service center offers a built-in knowledge base consisting of individual articles designed to help small business owners and their staff resolve common IT issues with greater speed. “Every aspect of CMIT Service Center is designed to help lower the overall cost of technology,” said Connally. “The knowledge base is for quick and easy-to-solve problems, and the ‘ticketing’ system minimizes downtime and unneeded service calls.”
CMIT Vice President of Product Strategy Melanie Fricke said more often than not IT departments deal with problems on a first-come, first-served basis-or according to the “squeaky wheel” principle, where whoever yells the loudest gets the most attention. “What you need is a way to prioritize tasks, also known as ‘tickets,’ and coordinate schedules so that technicians, non-technical employees and management all have a clear picture of who’s working on what,” she said.
The co-managed service desk is the latest offering from CMIT, which also provides small business owners with a host of other service packages, including CMIT Marathon, which monitors networks and servers and provides remote access and support and telephone help desk services for end users; CMIT Guardian, a flat-rate IT disaster recovery and data protection plan that safeguards computer files; and CMIT Anti-Spam, which protects SMBs against spam, viruses and phishing exploits outside the company network.