A 2008 University of East Carolina study researching the effects of IM (Instant Messaging)on the workplace, noted the following: “IM makes people in different areas work together. An e-mail doesn’t have the same impact as IM since an e-mail can’t verify if the person is online. It enables collaboration with groups in different areas to improve productivity. With a phone conversation, there is no time to perform other tasks while formulating a response. With IM, this is not the case. The immediacy of IM makes a better exchange when any other medium would be too lengthy.”

Take a minute to think about how you communicate. Do you rely mostly on the phone for getting in touch? Do the majority of your conversations happen face-to-face with someone else? Do you have the patience to wait for an email reply to an urgent issue?

If you spend most of your day in front of a computer, the answer to these questions is most probably “no.” We don’t like to take the time to pick up the phone and search for the right number, and besides for giving you a chance to stretch your legs, walking down the hall to a colleague’s office is not efficient. At the same time, you want instant communication, and you want it in a way that fits into what you are already doing – at work, in front of a computer, banging away on the keys.

The Rise of IM

Instant Messaging platforms such as AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Skype (News - Alert), MSN Messenger and Microsoft Office Communicator have literally revolutionized the way we communicate on a daily basis, and have become so ubiquitous and easy-to-use, that today, it is taken for granted that a significant number of our daily personal and professional “conversations” will take place on one, if not more, of these clients, using special language and abbreviations designed for efficiency and simplicity. “Instant Messaging” or “Live Chat” have become especially important in the work place, helping streamline processes and tasks and cutting down on wasted time spent on the phone, looking up numbers or waiting for an email that may never come.

Despite its rapid growth in the number of users these programs sign up on a daily basis, the benefits and time-savings of instant messaging have not yet been properly applied to one key area of our daily work life: IT Management.

Today, when it comes to providing IT support to employees at their company, IT Administrators have a few different options of communicating and helping them solve their issue. These include email, phone, end-user portal programs and messenger programs, such as Microsoft (News - Alert) Communicator. While these solutions allow IT users to connect and interact with IT Administrators, they are not built in to the interface of the IT Helpdesk program, requiring administrators to navigate away from a user’s “home page,” which most likely contains that person’s IT history, including his or her most recent conversations with an administrator or the most recent upgrades made to his or her IT assets. While this process does not require a significant amount of time per user, when added up over the course of a day, it severely limits the productivity of an IT Administrator, cutting down on his ability to properly field each of the requests he receives on a daily basis.

IT Administrators, already overworked and underappreciated, have had to struggle with this reality since the advent, essentially, of the IT Department, trying their best to keep up with the demand, yet failing time and again to meet these unrealistic expectations.

On the other hand, a live-chat functionality that is fully integrated into the Helpdesk software will transform the way IT managers communicate with end-users and will dramatically improve efficiency. Integrated Live Chat affords IT Administrators the ability to communicate in real time with users, providing them with the ability to not only carry on several requests in real time, but to do it simultaneously, something not afforded when responding over e-mail, and while not feeling the pressure to answer quickly, as he or she may when conducting the conversation on the phone.

According to the East Carolina study “as organizations are becoming more information based, the need for effective knowledge and collaborative environments amongst employees has become vital, especially, within more geographically dispersed teams. The impact of a tool to instantly collaborate with others is enormous. IM is that tool.”

The Future of IT

The melding of software with the ability to communicate in real time will introduce a new reality into the world of IT management. This is the future of IT.

A Live Chat module is not only going to make it easier for IT Administrators to do their jobs, but will simplify the process for the users as well, streamlining the IT process for the entire company and creating an environment that will allow the IT Department to make correct use of their available technology. The interface of Live Chat directly with the Helpdesk software will greatly shift the way IT Administrators do their jobs as it represents the first time that a “real-time” communications platform has been inserted into the software itself.

While an IT Administrator can use a regular “real-time” chat program to communicate with his users, by providing the IT Administrator with real time information as well, an integrated live chat platform will allow him to communicate “smartly,” conducting several different chats simultaneously, while monitoring the user’s IT assets at the same time, eliminating the need to work outside the chat box.

More importantly, an integrated “live-chat” feature will allow IT Administrators to avoid errors brought on by pressure or a struggle to keep up with an overload of requests, allowing them to catch their breath every now and then and even get ahead, leaving them some time for a nice, leisurely “chat” with their friend traveling overseas or their mother at home.

Saar Bitner is the Marketing Director of SysAid Technologies Ltd, an Israeli IT software company that provides IT Helpdesk solutions to better manage IT infrastructure with greater ease and efficiency .The company has deployed its software at more than 55,000 organizations in 120 countries, spanning all industries and company sizes, from small start-ups to leading non-profits to Fortune 500 corporations. For more information about SysAid Technologies, please visit www.sysaid.com.