How to support nearly anything, anywhere, for anyone

Providing IT support has become significantly more difficult over the last decade. Twenty years ago, an organization’s IT staff only had to support a limited number of devices provided to employees by the business, and those employees were on premises should anything go wrong, allowing professionals to do the “IT house call” should something go wrong. In comparison, today’s employees could be a hundred miles away, using their own device for work—and sharing it with their whole family and friends at the same time.

All of this is enough to make the modern IT Support professional want to curl up into a ball and hide under their desk. Don’t believe me? Here’s just a sampler of the devices an end user might ask for support for:

• A modern Windows laptop
• A Windows desktop with an older, but still supported OS
• And Google Chromebook
• A computer running one of the many flavors of Linux
• An Apple iPad or iPad Pro with a keyboard and trackpad accessory
• An Apple Macbook
• A Samsung phone connected to a monitor, mouse, and keyboard while running the company’s Dex desktop interface.

All of this has been made possible by the wonderful invention of the cloud, and because the biggest business cloud service providers—Microsoft with Office 365, and Google with Google Workspaces—are almost completely platform agnostic. All you need to access company services is a compatible remote connection appliance or a web browser, and you’re good to go.

There’s a breath of fresh air in that both of these tech giants have spent time making it easy to apply security policies to employee devices, such as denying them access to company systems if they don’t have the latest anti-malware definitions or security and stability updates in place. The real challenge comes when the end user inevitably calls because they can’t get their bespoke device to access your cloud services or another crucial service.

To help you out, this article lists out three things you can and slay this multi-headed hydra of device support, and keep your sanity in check as an IT support professional.

1. Never make assumptions

“Assumptions are the mother of all mistakes.” Most people have heard this saying in one form or another, but it’s a particular pitfall you should watch out for in IT support.

There are so many assumptions you could make—and shouldn’t—about your end user. The biggest you should watch out for are:

• Assuming where they are located in the world
• Assuming they speak the same language as you as their primary language
• Assuming they have a particular level of technical knowledge or understanding

We all know the story of somebody who points to their monitor and mistakenly calls it the PC. Ask yourself when someone describes something to you if they properly understand what they’re describing, or are they just expressing how they relate to that technology.

2. Ask simple, straightforward questions

To accommodate the truly varied people you’ll be talking to, it’s always a good idea to ask straightforward questions that can be answered with an equally simple “Yes” or “No”. This makes it more likely that the end user understands what you mean, and that you get the answer you need.

Some examples might be:

• “Has the PC been moved recently?”
• “Is anyone else encountering the same or a similar problem?”

These can help you identify potential causes, such as the office being disrupted over the weekend by a spring clean, or a common factor between machines. You can learn a lot, very quickly, from knowing what are the right and best questions to ask of the people you support. In turn, you’ll help them to understand what it is that has happened, so they might be better equipped to avoid it recurring in the future.

3. Keep it snappy

This article has a lot of ads, and here’s one more: “Time is money.” The main aim of any department providing IT support is to do so quickly and efficiently. Why? IT departments don’t make money, they only cost it. That’s the sad truth behind why your requests for better hardware and software are often knocked back, as upper management often sees the department as a gigantic money sink, even when you know you’re providing a valuable service.

The people who make the money are the people contacting you from other parts of the business. Their downtime is a financial cost to the organization, and if you’re savvy, you’ll already be keeping stats estimating how much money the business loses each year due to any IT downtime to justify your good work. That’s why efficiently helping and troubleshooting their remote devices is essential.

“But how do I actually provide speedy support when there’s such a large variety of possible devices and operating systems?” I’m glad you asked.

4. Check the Settings section

Almost all devices now have one, and it will almost always find a System option and then About. This helps quickly identify what you’re working with. If you don’t immediately see this option, then all Settings apps will include a search option. Additionally:

• In Chrome OS, under the main Settings panel you should see an About Chrome OS option, which also includes a handy diagnostics tool.
• In both macOS and iPadOS, the About option can be found in Settings under General or by searching for it.

5. Make sure to read the documentation

An hour of troubleshooting can save you five minutes of reading the docs. There are training guides on how to fix most common problems for Windows PCs, which you are likely already familiar with. However, not everyone is aware there are similar guides for other common operating systems including macOS, iPadOS, Chrome OS, and Linux.

Some of the common problems these guides will help you troubleshoot are Networking and boot issues. The former will help you with everything from resetting the computer’s network interface to diagnosing problems with a home or business network. The latter will help you with how to soft-reset those more obscure devices, such as Chromebook or iPad pros.

6. Have a reference machine

Having a machine in the office that IT support staff can refer to if they’re not certain where something is, or what troubleshooting and repair options are available, can be a massive boon. You can just pick it up and start figuring out how it works to diagnose your end user’s issue, and train yourself in its operation.

Unfortunately, with some devices (such as a Macbook or an iPad), purchasing these devices can cut into already tightly-guarded IT budgets. With Google Chrome OS however, you can download a free version of their run anywhere—Chrome OS Flex— and install this in a virtual machine.

7. Train yourself as much as possible

If there’s one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that training is absolutely essential when it comes to modern IT support. You might never become the master of all devices, but you can become familiar with a broad range of them and the most commonly recurring issues, as well as how to find the answers you need in a pinch.

Here are two on-demand vio courses you might find useful to help you diagnose, troubleshoot, and repair any problem with Microsoft Windows. Despite all the curveballs mentioned above, the majority of devices continue to be Windows PCs and laptops, so this is still a worthy investment of your time:

Additionally, if you’re in charge of your department’s IT training, my book The IT Support Handbook, Second Edition (Apress 2024) contains several chapters on how to structure and manage training, which you may find useful.

Conclusion: Quick diagnosis, docs, and training

These three things are your friend when it comes to modern IT support. Be flexible and adaptable to change, as it’s anyone’s guess what device your end user is using, and the situation they’re using it in. Good luck with helping your end users, and I wish you the best slaying that multi-headed hydra.