For fuller, more comprehensive customer support today, contact centers are turning toward more collaborative, remote solutions. Beyond simple co-browsing and screen sharing, remote support software now allows agents to handle all kinds of technical support calls, access a full audit trail of remote connections, and even incorporate chat functions and survey options within the support portal. In this way, remote support can help contact centers determine which operations are running well, and which ones need to be repaired or improved in order to achieve higher efficiency and customer satisfaction.
But remote support is not without its challenges. While newer solutions are important because they take advantage of new technological capabilities, they are also pertinent in terms of meeting new and complex security measures. One tried and true remote support solution that is now being taken off the market was pcAnywhere, provided by Symantec (News - Alert). But the company isn’t taking the solution totally off the table; rather, it’s pointing existing customers to a new and more comprehensive option called Bomgar (News - Alert) Remote Support Solution, having partnered with Bomgar to offer customers competitive pricing.
Russ Duffey, Bomgar’s vice president of business development, recently told CMSWire that it was time for a change in remote support. “PcAnywhere is a first-generation remote support product,” he said. “These did well early on, but over time they became big security liabilities.”
pcAnywhere, with its basic point-to-point architecture easily accessible for hackers, has faced a number of security threats and breaches in that past. In 2012, the software’s enterprise security source code was stolen and posted on the Web, prompting Symantec to advise users to disable the software entirely. But Bomgar’s solution promises a better way to secure remote connectivity, using an appliance-based model instead. Because both the customer and agent connect to the appliance through outbound connections with this type of model, Bomgar’s software doesn’t require the same firewall changes that point-to-point models did in the past.
“People don’t realize the risk that enterprises are facing using an older technology,” Duffey explained to CMSWire. “Bomgar gives Symantec customers a good, safe, secure, best-in-industry platform.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle