Remote Support

Hello everyone, I'm new here and just finding my feet.

I was asked recently a question by the director of a company that provides IT services for other businesses. They provide services remotely using a variety of remote access technologies. He asked me what I would do if I were working for them and a member of staff at a client company called and said "my internet and email are down". He was testing my knowledge to see how I would help resolve the issue.
This was a question he put to me in an interview.
I would be grateful if anyone could provide an answer to this question so I can see how the answer I gave compares.

Note: he didn't give any specifics of systems the company in question might be using, all I was given was the question I wrote above.

Thank you to anyone that gives an answer to this question.

First because this company offer services via remote connection that means your physical presence is not required. You have to be able to guide your client off hand which is quite challenging.

now you are going to tell him to go to his system and make sure his cable connections are well fitted

after that tell him to go his desktop click

start-control panel-network places- right click on Local area connection- double click on tcp/IPv4 and make sur the IP address,default gate and DNS are intact

then you can tell him to ping 127.0.0.1, then his IP, then the default gateway and his DNS

if all this are intact then the problem will probably require your physical presence or you could route him to a senior technical support manager

note , guide him step by step, if he is skilled too then you can take short cuts, and you will probably posses the ability to restart his gate way do so pls.

Thanks for that sose.

When I answered I mentioned that the component parts of the system were 1. the cables 2. configuration and protocols 3. infrastructure of the service provider, and that these should be checked in order.
Maybe I wasn't specific enough but he wasn't impressed with what I said.

What if his IP address, DNS and default gateway are assigned to him by DHCP, can I assume the presence of an engineer on-site would be needed?
What about a situation where he could access the network ok but his email system wasn't working, how would you approach that?

whether IPs are allocatted dynamically or statically you still need to follow that procedure

You are dealing with call support, so you should know that you will have a big database of troubleshooting guide that you can consult. if you are hooked you can always tell the client to give you a couple of minutes that you will call him later that you are busy with another client . then you can do a little research

the less technical your client is the more difficult it is for you to handle him. and appearing on site is a last resort because it is expensive.

when your client can browse but cannot recieve mails, then you will have to check with the mail server.

since you can connect to the network, you can take over the server and do some troubleshooting throuh remote connection or configure a file so that your client can invite you through remote assistace and both of you can work on thesame desktop , but that will be difficult for me to explain here


have a super week

Supporting//Troubleshooting is nothing more then doing some deduction.

Exluding possible causes.

As you said

-Cables
-Gateway
-DNS

Of your user has DHCP IP adres and ends up with a 169.254.x.x address than you know enough.
If he/she has a 'normal' ip address, check gateway.

If you can ping the gateway then probabyl it is an application setting//problem unless the entire internet is down for the location where the client resides.

There is no exactly right way to solve problems, just try to reduce the possibilities and start with the most likely.