We asked the people at CBS’ IT Support what they as a department would want for Christmas. They only have two wishes.

“You could travel to the Moon and back in 1969, you are able to squeeze insane amounts of technology into a tiny brick and carry it in your pocket, but somehow you can’t make a printer that is paper jam-proof. What’s up with that?” asks Mathias Boy Holst from IT Support.

“At least one to two times a day, we have issues with our printers because of paper jams. Sometimes, we even have to call in professionals to solve the problems. This is why we would like to have paper jam-proof printers for Christmas,” he says.

One wonders if printers will even be around in the near future, but Mathias Boy Holst is quite sure that they will be.

“We are indeed moving towards being a paperless society, but then again, we are not. Not long ago, we even had a professor who wanted to print his PowerPoint presentation for his students. I guess some people just really like the paper version of things,” he says.

Hello, this is IT Support. How may I help you?

Another task that IT Support spends a long time on doing, is to figure out what problem the users have and then finding the right person to solve that problem.

“I would say that sometimes we spend at least 10 minutes trying to figure out what issues the user are dealing with. Is it hardware or software related? Is it something we can handle from a distance? Stuff like that. From figuring out what the problem is, to finding the right person who can solve the problems, takes time. I’m sure that we could decrease that time by using a telephone-robot,” says Mathias Boy Holst.

He explains that IT Support would like to have a robot picking up the phone and diagnose the problem before the call gets forwarded to the right person who can handle the issue. Furthermore, the robot should be able to speak any of the big languages such as Danish, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, German or Russian. So, when a person calls, it will greet them in English, but you could then start talking Danish, French or Chinese and it would switch to that language.

“This robot should be able to ask basic questions about the issue and diagnose it somehow. The robot would then have a list with all of the employees, and every employee would have told the robot what their competences are. Are they good with printers, Mac hardware, Office, or PC? The robot would then know which employee to direct the person to. That would be a lot faster and easier,” says Mathias Boy Holst.

But what if that person is unavailable? Well, then the robot should be able to write a short note about the issue and put it in the system so that the next available employee can take up the case.

“I think by having a robot like this, we could cut the time that is being spent on diagnosing the issue from 10 to two minutes. Then we would be able to help people faster, as the person can get a hold of the right employee on their first try, instead of me forwarding the phone call to an employee who isn’t even the right person to handle the situation,” says Mathias Boy Holst.

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