Tech Support

No matter people are into what kind of a job, a business or a corporate. No matter how comfortable people are with the technology, a crashing computer or a virus that keeps coming back failing all the attempts to eliminate it cannot be escaped.

When in such a desperate situation the first thing that users do is to contact the vendor. To make lives easier, most of the companies that sell hardware or software have certified experts to help the users with any tech support issues regarding their products. These experts are just a phone call or email away from helping the users with any such issue. Large companies have even internal technical support or help desk for their employees.

Many years ago this was not the scene. As the technology was simple the technical support needed was also very limited. Only a handful of technical people were enough for an organization to provide any technical assistance. As the technology evolved the complexity of the tech support also increased. It needs significant expertise in the specific technology to provide a proper technical support. In general these days, the users and people also should have the basic knowledge of the technology.

Tech support attempts to help users with any specific software, hardware or any other technical issue with the electronic or mechanical product rather than providing any kind of tutorial or training. Technical support can be provided through a range of mediums such as phone call, articles, expert answering to your specific questions, and even online supports such as message boards, chat rooms, emails. Online technical support is not only about resolving the issues, it?s about providing the best support and guidance to the users.

The support process involves many entities and levels. It is important to understand the levels and the relation between them. The number of level would definitely vary with the size of the organization or company. Again, the number of levels would vary for the type of tech support.

But, the four distinct layers are, level 0, level 1, level 2, and level 3. Level 0 is known as the Self-Service Support, level 1 is known as the Helpdesk, level 2 is known as the Field Support, and level 3 is known as the Server Administration support.

Online technical support is the part of level 1. The most popular medium of online supports are message boards, chat rooms, emails etc.

Message boards: If the user posts his issue in a message board then people who are members and who had similar kind of issue would post the solutions there. Anybody can be a member of such message boards. The member can be a technician or a normal user. Message boards proved a great success in providing basic online technical support to users having typical issues. Message boards are generally free of charge.

Chat rooms: This is also a very good and effective medium in providing online technical support to the users. There are specific sites providing online support through chat rooms. Only thing is the person using this facility should have a user id and password. The best thing about support through this medium is that the user gets the time and opportunity to present the whole issue at one instance and also gets the solution right away. The drawback of this kind of support is that some of the sites charge the users for the subscription.

Emails: This is the most popular medium of online support. This is free of cost. Anybody who has the email id of the support can write. The complete issue can be explained in a single mail and the solution provided by the technical team can be saved for the future reference. There could be chain of mails for a single issue or a single mail can also be enough to resolve the same. This depends on the complexity of the problem. The technical team providing the support also gets time to discuss among themselves or refer to any other material in case of complex issues. The best part is users can write and read email at their convenience.

One of the most important requirements of online support is to understand the types of users who seek support. This helps in successful resolution of the issue that the users face because each of them and their issues is unique in their own way. The technician or the technical team providing support should be able to understand the issue properly to resolve it effectively and to reach to the users? s expectations. The formulation of the approach to deal with users is also important. So, to understand the user becomes even more important.

The users can be categorised as novice, intermediate, risky, VIP, and busy. Some can be the combination of these categories while some fall only in one category.

Although online tech support is a relatively new service but, it is a fast-growing industry because consumers find it easier than contacting their vendor. Contacting the manufacturer is often more time consuming and costly as consumer has to spend an inordinate time holding the call and also to subscribe for the service means paying a hefty amount. Consumer can control the process in online support and pay only if they are satisfied with the service. There are sites dedicated to provide IT support to small businesses whether you work from home or office. Some sites as already stated offer support for free and some are paid supports.

Pros and cons: Like everything else online technical support also has some pros and cons. As stated above pros are, there are some sites or online supports which provide free service, consumers have full control over the process, saves time. Cons are, only direct questions, and basic software and hardware issues can be dealt with very easily. Complicated hardware issues cannot be addressed offsite. Onsite support is needed for that. Also the user should have the basic knowledge of the technology to understand what exactly he is supposed to do to solve the issue.

The thing that users should keep in mind before signing up for online technical support is to read the terms and conditions, review the expert? s ratings on the site, and lastly have the information of the expert?s background.