Do These Things to Help Yourself Out When Calling Tech Support

I do a little tech support for an internet firm and I can tell you that we don't mind helping you if you are willing to listen, make an effort, pay attention and don't talk over us. We want to help. Truly. But you have to put in some effort and don't try to make everyone someone else's fault.

Most problems are not the fault of your internet provider. They are the fault of your computer, or your router or other such hardware. Or they are your fault. It's not a crime, it happens. But don't try to pretend that you didn't push the reset button when you did and don't try to make up some story about how it's never worked when log records clearly indicate only a recent problem. If you fib it makes it harder to help you.

We can't see everything you do, we don't monitor your every move and we're not out to get you. We don't sabotage your system. Generally we want you to have good service, learn as much as you can about the technology you're using and we want you to stay out of trouble. Viruses are no fun for us either. We hate dealing with them, we don't send them to you just so you need to pay someone to get it fixed.

Help yourself first. Try some basic troubleshooting. Most problems can be solved by restarting your computer. Next try unplugging your highspeed modem and your router. Plug them back in, restart your computer again. If that doesn't work, then call us. We appreciate it when you try things on your own.

Don't start messing with every setting you find. Unless you know what they mean, changing settings only makes it harder to solve the original problem. You've probably got multiple problems now.

Use a little common sense and the tech support person on the other end of the line will be a great help to you.

Source: http://goo.gl/pwPiM

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The Four Levels of Technical Support

Software and hardware (and technology in general) save individuals, small businesses and massive corporations copious amounts of time. It does so by automating mundane tasks, by accurately keeping track of huge amounts of data and by providing easy to use interfaces to interact with data. However, when a piece of hardware or software is broken or has bugs, it becomes a black hole of time. Many of computer monitors have been smashed by irate consumers who are sick and tired of trying to fix a problem that seems to have no origin! Technical support is essentially a specialized form of customer care that enables consumers like you and I to communicate our problems to a seasoned technician who can help us fix the problem over the phone or through instant messaging. In some cases, the technician can remotely diagnose and fix the problem through remote technical support. The immense requirement of a specialized sector to deal with technical problems led to the evolving of a technical support system. Companies may have technical support in-house (which means the manufacturer of the product handles technical queries and requests for support) or they may outsource it to a third-party that absorbs this particular part of their business.

Through the years, tech support has evolved to changing consumer behavior, customer expectations and advances in technology. Today almost every technology company has some form of tech support and consumers have come to expect technical support as their right and not just a privilege. Tech support has developed vertically into tiers (four main tiers) to ensure that the customers need is serviced accurately and promptly but also to cut costs by hiring specialist technicians only at the higher tiers. It makes no sense for a specialized hardware engineer to be sitting on the technical support floor handling calls about how to insert a floppy into a floppy drive! The tier system, therefore, serves a dual purpose: to maintain customer satisfaction by servicing all customer needs and to cut costs by servicing low-intensity technical support calls at lower, less specialized tiers.

The first tier of technical essentially tries to gather as much information from the customer as possible in order to determine whether it is a low-intensity call that need not be passed to higher tiers or whether a more experienced or knowledgeable technician needs to handle the call. The first tier is the technical support team's first line of defense of sorts against an inexperienced, confused consumer. The first tier needs to decipher what the customer is saying in layman terms, solve the problem or pass it on to the appropriate tier. The second tier of technical support is more advanced and solves more complicated technical support questions. Technicians at the second tier have it a little easier than their friends down at the first tier because at this stage, they already have a technical background about the customer's problem (thanks to the hard work of the first tier folks!). Second tier technicians are sometimes completely shielded from the customer altogether, only providing technical knowledge and support to first tier technical support. The third tier is the highest internal tier and is responsible for technical queries that are not documented or that have no known solution. The third tier technicians are essentially investigators, who try and figure out what the problem is without any background knowledge of symptoms and possible causes. Hiring third tier technicians is very expensive so companies will use them sparingly! If you are a customer and you've made it through all these tiers and the technician transfer you to a fourth tier, you better start looking for contingency plans. The fourth tier of technical support basically implies that the company you called is going to call the company that it bought goods from and go through the same process you went through! You're better off throwing your equipment or software away.

Source: http://goo.gl/d1dk5

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Benefits of Online Computer Tech Support

When we talk about uses of computer, we get surprised by knowing about its need and utility. We also get surprised by the numbers of people who don't know about how to work on PC or have never worked on a PC. Both seem quite contradictory as its uses are so vast it's assumed that every one knows how to use this machine. People who use it frequently also face a lot of issues with it due to its nature of working with the help of many software applications. Online computer tech support has been a true partner in educating people and making them self dependent on the terms of computer uses.

Here one point needs to be addressed that computer and internet are soul mates and together they create a very strong combination. Now days almost every thing depends on computer and internet due its efficiency to synchronize many acts together. Its uses are indispensable and impeccable.

Now we will get back to the point where we were discussing the technicality and use of many software applications in regards to computers, and benefits of online computer tech support. When we start counting the benefits of getting online tech support the list can go endless but I have tried to incorporate the most important benefits of it.

• Time saving and round the clock availability: Online computer tech support is available round the clock so that we could take their help whenever we face any kind of problem with our computer. The round the clock availability saves a lot of time for us.

• Cost effective: Because of the fact that this service is rendered remotely so a lot more is offered in a very small price. We also save our bills on many things like phone bill, gas bill, parking bill, technician bill etc just in order to get a small support not many as many support will get a huge technician bill. But in online service we get a lot more service in a one time small payment.

• Huge application support: As this service is offered online so it makes availability of lot of software applications which are available online.

• Great help for networking: Online computer tech support also takes care of almost many networking issues.

• Strong support for security and its service: It is considered to be on o the best support for security as it requires a lot of attention and timely checks. Regular updates and scanning is a must for all security systems.

• A Great help in all kinds of updates, upgrades, installation and un-installation: We all must be aware of one very important fact about software that it requires regular updates and upgrades in order to keep performing with high efficiency.

• installation and un-installation is a regular thing on our computer and sometimes they can be a real trouble for a novice.

• Makes migration easy: It makes all kinds of migration possible and that too online.

Source: http://goo.gl/yJhpk

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