Remote IT support
Most problems are solved before a technician could have reached the car park. You describe what is happening, we connect to the machine with your permission, and you watch the fix happen.
The short answer
Remote IT support means a technician connects to your computer over the internet, with your permission, and fixes the problem while you watch. It suits anything that is software, account or configuration related — which is roughly eight out of ten of the faults a small office actually reports. It costs less than a callout, it starts as soon as we pick up, and nothing physical gets touched.
What's included
- A real technician on the session, anywhere in Australia
- Attended sessions — you see everything, and you end the session whenever you like
- Email, Microsoft 365, Outlook and mail-flow problems
- Slow machines, failed updates, software that will not install or launch
- Printers, scanners and mapped drives that have stopped appearing
- Permissions, shared folders and SharePoint access
- New starters, leavers and account changes
- Suspicious emails checked before anyone clicks or pays
- A written note of what was done, so it is not a black box
What people call us about
- “Outlook is asking for a password and won't accept it.”
- “The shared drive has vanished off one person's machine.”
- “It's taking four minutes to open a file that used to be instant.”
- “We've had an invoice come through and something feels off.”
- “New starter begins Monday and nothing is set up.”
- “Everyone can print except one person.”
How a session actually runs
01
You call or send a line of detail
One number, no ticket queue and no triage script. Tell us what changed and whether it is one person or everyone — that single answer decides most of what happens next.
02
You approve the connection
A prompt appears on the machine and somebody there accepts it. Nothing happens until they do. The session is logged, and you can end it at any moment.
03
We fix it while you watch
You see the screen the whole time. If it turns out to be something physical, we say so quickly rather than billing an hour to prove it, and book the visit instead.
04
You get a note of what changed
Short, plain and written down. It matters when the same thing happens in six months, and it matters more if you ever move to a different provider.
What it costs
Remote sessions are billed by time with no travel component, which is the entire reason they are cheaper than a callout. There is no minimum call-out fee to absorb, so a ten-minute fix costs like a ten-minute fix.
- Billed in short increments after an initial minimum — you are not charged an hour for a five-minute change
- Included and prioritised on every monthly plan
- No charge if we conclude in the first few minutes that it needs a physical visit
- After-hours available at an agreed rate — see after-hours support
If you are calling us three or four times a quarter, a plan will cost less than the sessions. We will tell you that rather than letting the invoices accumulate. What IT support costs has the full picture.
What's not included
Remote support is genuinely good at a specific set of problems and useless at another. Being clear about the second set is what stops you paying for an hour of guessing.
- Anything that needs hands on hardware — a dead machine, a failed drive, a screen, a cable
- Wi-Fi problems caused by where equipment physically sits
- A site with no working internet, for the obvious reason
- New premises fit-outs and office moves, which are quoted as projects
- Data recovery from failed media, which belongs in a specialist lab
A job like this
A Capalaba office rang at 8:40am because nobody could send email — inbound was arriving, outbound sat in the outbox. Connected by 8:52. A mail-flow rule added by a previous provider two years earlier had started matching a new supplier's domain. Removed, tested, everyone sending by 9:05. A callout would have arrived after 10.
Where remote support goes further
Three situations come up often enough to have their own pages, because the answer in each is genuinely different rather than a rewording of this one.
After-hours and weekend support
Cutovers, migrations and the Sunday-night server. What is covered outside 7:30–5:30, and what it costs.
Remote and hybrid staff
Supporting people at kitchen tables and in other cities without a different process for each of them.
Australia-wide remote support
For businesses outside our driving radius, on a remote-only arrangement with the physical side handled honestly.
Questions about remote IT support
What can actually be fixed remotely?
Anything that is software, configuration or account related, which is most of what goes wrong: email that has stopped, a slow machine, a printer that will not appear, permissions on a shared folder, a Microsoft 365 licence, a program that will not update, a suspicious email that needs checking. In practice around eight in ten of the faults we are called about are resolved without anyone driving anywhere.
What cannot be fixed remotely?
Anything physical. A machine that will not power on, a failed drive, a screen, a cable run, a switch that has died, a Wi-Fi problem caused by where the hardware sits. We will tell you inside the first few minutes if a visit is needed rather than spending an hour proving it.
Do you need to install something on our computers?
Yes, a small support agent — the same tool that does monitoring and patching for plan clients. It lets us connect when you ask us to. For a one-off session with a business we have never worked with, we can instead send a single-use link that runs once and leaves nothing behind.
Can you see our screen when we have not asked you to?
No. Connecting to an attended session requires someone at that machine to accept the prompt, and the session is logged. Unattended access to servers and shared machines is set up deliberately, with your knowledge, and is also logged. If that arrangement is ever unclear, ask us for the log — you are entitled to it.
How does remote support start?
You call or send the form, we send a session link, and you watch everything we do. It works across the whole service area and beyond it. That is a commitment, not an average — and because there is no travel involved, the response and the start of the actual work are usually the same moment.
Do we have to be on a plan?
No. Remote support is available as a one-off session billed by time, and it is by far the cheapest way to get a technical problem looked at. Plan clients get it included, prioritised, and paired with monitoring that often catches the fault before anyone reports it.
Can you support staff working from home?
Yes, and it is one of the main reasons businesses call us. A person at a kitchen table is exactly as reachable as a person at head office. See our page on supporting remote and hybrid staff for how that works across a whole team.
What if we are not in South East Queensland?
Remote support does not care where you are. We support businesses well outside our driving radius on a remote-only basis, with a clear arrangement for what happens when something physical breaks. See the Australia-wide page.
Worth reading before your first session: how remote IT support actually works, whether it is safe, remote or on-site, and what to do before the session starts.
Needs hands on it instead? Computer repairs and networks and Wi-Fi are on-site services, and where we work on site is listed by suburb.