GDC Supplemental IT Services and Retooling to Allow Emergency Remote Connectivity

When 2020 began, the average company may have employed a handful of remote workers and relied on typical on-site and face-to-face activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, many companies had to re-tool and transition some or all of their employees to work from home for the foreseeable future. It’s a scenario that played out across the globe as the number of coronavirus cases swelled and more employers committed to the social-distancing practices that health officials stated would help slow the spread of COVID-19.

The Business Need

During this unprecedented period of uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic, GDC recognized that typical on-site and face-to-face business operations may be limited or replaced entirely by virtual technologies utilizing screen sharing and video conferencing platforms.

For many businesses, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the uncertainty presented by the crisis, advanced the need to work remotely to maintain the safety of their customers and employees. This required an investment in re-tooling infrastructure and processes to allow emergency remote connectivity and the flexibility to ramp up an employee technical help desk beyond the typical workday to support flexible work hours.

GDC saw a 40% increase in clients needing to pivot their workforce remote. In March 2020, servicing ticket workload nearly doubled. Hardware sales jumped as employers scrambled to equip their workers with the necessary tools to work from home.

The Solution

With extensive experience working remotely and supporting the use of virtual technologies, GDC took a proactive approach to provide agile support to all clients from the outset. To make remote work possible, GDC focused on the technologies and services needed for new and existing clients to connect, communicate, and collaborate. 

We prepared our clients for the virtual transition through communications across multiple channels and the deployment of supplemental service desk models to supplement standard business hour and after-hour support via phone, email, chat bot and informative articles. We were fully prepared to adhere to a client organization’s guidelines on COVID-19 and support a service transition in-person and virtually as needed.

GDC’s main tickets at the start of the pandemic focused on set-up. Setting up remote gateways and VPNs became a necessity to ensure sensitive information remained secure. Additionally, GDC utilized patch tower solutions to open up access to shared drives. Wi-Fi connectivity also became a main issue that GDC was able to troubleshoot and repair for clients.

The Results

New and existing clients and their employees benefitted from adaptable IT support, allowing business to thrive. The transition to virtual technologies and supplemental after-hours IT service desk models helped businesses and their employees to remain safely at home with their families, while also staying connected to each other and their work.

Although GDC saw a significant increase in submitted tickets from existing clients and consultations with new ones, our expert staff was able to balance the emergency remote connectivity workload efficiently. Our team has gained the trust of our clients and community to take precautionary measures, enter their homes, and establish a tech set-up that made it possible for them to complete their work outside of the office.

“All of our clients were understanding and patient with our timeline,” said Eric Hockenberry, Managed Services Team Lead at GDC. “They understood the kind of workload we were facing.”

The adoption of virtual technologies generated new models of operation in our clients’ organizations with an understanding that flexible work conditions can empower businesses to increase employee productivity, maximize investments and improve operational efficiencies.