Logmein Rescue - Robust, Feature-rich, Scalable, Affordable

I am a co-owner of a formerly Break-Fix model computer repair business. We have a strong focus on customer service and support. Our business is currently undergoing a conversion as an emerging MSP. We have reliably used Logmein Rescue since it was pre-beta. We have seen many iterations through the years and over all, have been pleased with the robust and mature product it is today. We took advantage of their in-house rebranding, and found it easy to integrate into our website, and to install on customers' machines.

The very good things about Logmein Rescue mostly overshadow the few shortcomings. The light-weight app requires very little resources to run either on the technician side or the consumer's end. The technician app can be run from a browser via a plug-in, or via a small installation package that can install a more permanent version of the desktop rescue technician console. Distinguishing between either the browser base or desktop is slight, especially if the browser is running in full screen. The benefits to this type of flexibility enable me to on the fly help a customer, even if I find my self off-site, without my own computers, but near a machine that has internet. The System Info tab is an excellent quick click when first connecting to a remote session. This very detailed snap shot can give the technician and incredible amount of useful data in under a second. This can help immediately explain slow computers when it turns out the have a pentium 3 cpu and 512mb of ram.

A fundamental feature that should not be overlooked is the Logmein Rescue Calling Card. This small customizable app can be generated from the web-based account login. An installation package is created on the fly, that has a technician defined preset group of behaviors. i.e. Run on start up, always check for updates, etc. Any time a session is initiated with a client - the technician has the option to push an install of the logmein calling card - which generally takes under 9 seconds to download and install on the customer's machine.

Technicians can generate sessions via a hyper-link that can be pushed or emailed, by creating a portal on your website, or through the logmeinrescue calling card left on a customers computer. There is a chat component that can be used while in session, or can be used as a stand alone "Contact Us" api embedded on your website.

The console features an intuitive layout with Customers listed by name across the top, and in-session clients organized below on tabs. The tabs can be "torn-away" like most web-browser today, which allows the tech to "alt-tab" between open sessions. The console has the main windows which facilitate remote desktop viewing and controlling, in addition allows for cycling through multiple monitor or even showing all monitors at once in the event there are more than one on the customer's machine. There is an excellent and nimble file transfer component that allows for 2-way file transfers and folder creation on the client's machine. Technicians have the ability to create and maintain a host of scripts that can be pushed an ran silently through the console.

For Access techs have the ability to reboot machines and reconnect - even in safemode w/ networking. There are also options to set unattended access for a specific or indefinite amount of time. We find the capture credentials feature useful for our more paranoid customer who do not want to give up their windows login creds. This allows the customer to enter their own login info.

We really like the history tab - as it allows us to view a pretty good timeline of events and logged notes by yourself or previous techs.

Finally, you can use the console to control and push to mobile devices. As mobile devices begin to push out PCs in the consumer market this feature will be more important than ever.

We run the the app as a system service when connecting for remote support sessions. This eliminates the frustrating situation of having the customer click next etc. However this is also where the trouble starts. Installing the app on the customer's end requires them, in most cases to download and run an installation package, which they then need to click run again as the called in package is delivered and installed. Then an "ok", "yes", "next" and "allow access / unblock and allow", and "continue" is required. This can be overwhelming to elderly or non-savvy users. I am not kidding you - I have been on the phone for up to 1 hour, just trying to get someone through the prompts to get connected.

For this reason we are having to use Team Viewer as our on the fly remote connection support console. We still deploy the Rescue calling card on customer's desktops as a backup, but for initiating new support sessions where there is no calling card - we have to go with TV. There is very little prompting or answering questions on the part of the customer.

The only other issue we have is the following: About 1 out of every 10 sessions, where the user has their DPI set high so everything is larger on the screen, the console will only display a small portion of the customer's desktop. We have never found a fix for this despite putting out to LMI's tech team. Now when it happens we use the LMIRescure file transfer to push them a TV install.

Overall the app is solid and Way more affordable than most competing products. It is scalable and customizable through rebranding to fit your business needs and marketing integration aspirations. It works great for PC,Mac, and Most mobile devices. There are a few persistent bugs - but mostly they do not interfere with the vast number of supports sessions we conduct using the software.

We will continue to use this product for at least the next 24 months as we transition our business model from the Break-Fix to MSP.