3 Ways to Make Tech Support Calls Less Painful
If you’ve ever had to call customer support on a product or computer in your home, or placed a support call to your company helpdesk, you’re probably in the group that Caroline Mayer says, “contact a computer company’s free-tech support line don’t get their problems solved”.
As someone who has been on both sides of the game let me say that consumers/users usually have issued a verdict on tech support before they even pick up the phone. They already have it in their mind that they are frustrated and the help they are about to ask for is going to be useless. Thus, when the tech on the other end asks questions, they become frustrated in not being able to gather what the problem is for the user.
Let me put some things out there that will make your tech support call more productive.
Observe Symptoms - Support is going to want to know what was happening when you noticed the problem occurred. They are not looking to place blame but sometimes understanding what transpired leading up to the problem can help determine what the cause was.
Look at the entire screen - Users get tunnel vision and don’t observe nuances in the periphery on the screen. Look in the corners and near the edges of the screen for visual clues to the problem. Perhaps there are error messages. When a support person asks you to look at the screen and provide information, sometimes everyday information can become like “white noise” and might be easily overlooked. Making a careful evaluation of all the information on the screen can help fix the issue.
Note Error Messages - One of the most helpful things that can be done to assist either a helpdesk tech or deskside support tech is to make note of error messages. Sometimes they can’t be cut and pastes. Write the errors down on a piece of paper or take a screenshot of the error and save it for reference.
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3 opinions for 3 Ways to Make Tech Support Calls Less Painful
Sean M. Crawford Sr.
May 10, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Hopefully that bit of information will be helpful.
Aaron
May 11, 2006 at 8:36 pm
I had visions of Stephen Mexia while I was writing that. I don’t know why.
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