Informational Constraints of Remote Technical Support Environments: Implications for the Design of Support Systems

Abstract

Effective remote technical support is a competitive factor in consumer satisfaction. This paper reports the analysis of the remote support domain with respect to the agents, their information requirements, the issues relevant to the transfer of information from one agent to another, and the technology and tools that are currently used. The goal of this work was to understand the current environment with respect to the future direction of such environments and to understand the issues that afflict that environment so that the design of any support system would incorporate the appropriate design requirements. The factors contributing to performance behavior in the remote support task include the problem solving nature of the task, the restricted perceptual context, the distributed knowledge of the remote support team, and the role of communicating to remotely located agents. Research in these issues leads to the conclusion that tools designed to support the collaboration of remote technical support teams must maintain the interactivity of the team member dialogues that are used to define, test, and respond to the problem. But the tools must also be developed to facilitate behaviors exhibited in effective teamwork.