Are you an IT professional and still getting deep with a thought of what you should do?
This idea certainly pops up when you are likely to put your first step in your career. This domain belongs to technology, which has given a rise to digital transformation and experience. People are more interesting to shop online instead of buying over-the-counter products. It’s all because of technology.
So, it’s a blessing that you are a technician or have skills that are the most-sought after job requirements at present.
What is an IT support service?
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Also called technical support, the IT support services refer to the practice of offering expertise, skills and competencies based on electronic products, digital products (like software/ applications) and network security services.
This service covers understanding, assessing problems specific to a product or digital services and troubleshooting. Some outsourcing companies provide technical support for the services or products on behalf of their customers, or the companies themselves hire a team of technicians to provide technical assistance to their end-users.
So, analyzing, planning, overcoming instances, monitoring technical or digital data related glitches, upgrading systems, securing them and troubleshooting are some significant composition of this service. The professional support assistants come with an effective managed IT support services plan to prevent any technical fault before it’s too late to troubleshoot. This is why their profile is extremely valuable and in-demand for all industries and domains.
Online Platforms for IT Support
- Onsite Support: It represents a typical practice of resolving technical challenges like network and networking troubleshooting, emailing glitches, server setup, installing hardware/software or cloud computing and IT security etc. on the site physically.
- Phone Support: This is a revolutionary support, which offers an end-to-end IT support service through smartphones or digital handsets, which are 6,378 million worldwide.
- Email Support: This is relatively old support service, which is non-intrusive and outstanding practice of reaching service-seekers through their inbox.
- Live Chat Support: It’s an integrated virtual assistant bot on a website that allows you to share complaints or requests to be administered. For commonly faced technical faults, it offers an incredible assistance using How-to videos, tutorials, demos and smart steps with minimal interference for IT solutions.
- Remote/Virtual Support: This is a professional support that any IT outsourcing company provides harnessing its resources like matter experts, engineers and certified professionals. They use quick communication tools to interact with customers and eliminate their problems from any location.
Types of IT Support Services
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Block Hours
This is a common practice these days that allows customers to buy hours or slots (for getting support) upfront at a specific price. However, many educationists, companies and professionals come with freemium services, which are initially free for a month or defined period and paid once that period is over. This is mainly concerned with solving customers’ technical queries as how to refine a software or digital product, offering a response to come across related challenges or learning about any new or existing launch.
It offers a great opportunity to professionals of technology to draw revenues by offering expertise.
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Outsourcing managed services
As these are concerned with managerial activities, the technical assistant responds and offers resolutions corresponding to the well-defined services in an agreement. These services are bracketed under 24/7 monitoring and helpdesk support for managing desktops, laptops, network, networking, servers and software. For a project, this agreement can scale to backing up, disaster recovery and vendor management, which define managed services.
This is a great career alternative for the full-time certified experts who have a hands-on experience in these domains.
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Crowdsourced technical support
It’s a forum-based activity, which offers a discussion board to listen to customers’ technical queries and respond accordingly. The professionals of this domain form this board. It is the most effective and economical type of assistance that companies & organizations can have while leveraging its benefits.
It’s just a platform for sharing and assisting people to come across challenges in any type of technology-based jobs.
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Self-Assistance
It’s like chat bot, which is a virtual assistant offering huge databases and step-by-step guides plus tutorials to instruct service seekers on how to troubleshoot independently using the guidelines. For some exceptional cases, this support is backed with a real-time physical support representative who is a matter expert for solving your queries.
Those who tend to appear as a problem-solver by tackling technical faults using their experience and expertise can easily get an opportunity in this domain.
Tops IT Jobs for Supporting Customers
Here are some top IT-support jobs that you may like to opt in for a solid starting point of your career:
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Computer technician
What Role You Have: For this role, you need to put on multiple hats and showcase your versatility and special skills that you have. This role of a computer technician is ideally required in all businesses, enterprises and companies because the hardware and software can show errors any time, which need quick fixes.
Education: Having education in this domain with A+ certification can give you a good start in your career. Later on, gain some specialised skills in repairing & managing networks, servers and other IT products to get more growth opportunities.
Estimated Salary: $16.11 per hour (in the USA)
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Desktop support technician
What Role You have: These technicians are frontrunners who are asked to troubleshoot systems like computers or laptops. This role does not bother about remote or physical presence. The substantial point is to eliminate the problem by hook or crook so that the systems can start up and running smoothly. Precisely, you should know about how to configure, test, and troubleshoot network and wireless issues, set up user accounts, format and set up desktop and laptop computers according to company’s requirements.
Education: A bachelor degree in IT or equivalent will be sufficient for this role. However, some companies may prefer high school diploma or certification in the IT with a hands-on experience.
Estimated Salary: $43,263 per year
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Help desk technician
What Role You Have: This profile needs a pair of analytical eyes to see and diagnose any technical problems for customers. However, these analysts not technically responsible for troubleshooting or fixing problems as a desktop support engineer. But, he should be outstanding at discovering the technical flaw so that the challenges won’t cause any damage or blunder.
Education: For this role, a bachelor’s degree in computer science and information technology management or diploma would be required.
Estimated Salary: $39,979 per year
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IT support analyst
What Role You Have: This profile needs a go-to professional who frequently comes with improved technologies and upgrading systems plan to avoid technical troubles in the future. They foresee the trends and challenges while analyzing the trends and technology so that the re-designing and refining the entire IT infrastructure including hardware, software and applications with systems can happen time to time.
Education: For this role, you should have at least a bachelor’s degree in information technology and a hands-on experience of working with a business administration’s IT infrastructure.
Estimated Salary: $50,911 per year
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IT support specialist
What Role You Have: Being an IT support specialist, this professional should be able to set up, install and troubleshoot technology and software-based errors effectively. Upgrading these systems, servicing while managing all hardware and software products are a part of this role. An additional responsibility will be there to control, repair, troubleshoot and authorize company’s smartphone and tablets or notebooks. For the hardware defect, you should have to communicate with vendors, which requires a strong interpersonal skill.
Education: It needs a technical education, diploma or degree course in technology and information technology plus prior hands-on experience.
Estimated Salary: $75,231 per year
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Systems administrator
What Role You Have: Technicians in this profile needs to perform the responsibilities of a system administrator. They should be able to create, maintain computer systems and networks of a company. Figuring out the contextual requirements in time and then, executing the plan in a real time are added responsibilities, which involve setting up computers and networks, maintaining the hardware and systems, and keeping software up to date.
Education: However, there is no specific education for this profile, but having a bachelor’s degree in computer science or computer engineering will be an advantage. The challenges in practices will make you able to evolve and get refined over time.
Estimated Salary: $62,958 per year
