How
to Get Better Technical Support
Whenever
you have a technical question that needs answering, you want that
answer as fast as possible, right? In the instantaneous world of
the internet, patience has become a rare commodity, and the time
you spend unable to send or receive email or waiting for your website
to come back online can mean lost revenue. If you want to get a
timely response from your support technician, there are things you
can do as a customer to speed up the process:
- Define the problem as accurately as possible
The more detail you can provide, the more quickly the technician
can identify the source of the problem and correct it. Try
to determine the following information if possible:
- What were you doing when the error occurred?
- What program were you operating that produced the error?
Note the version of the program and the operating system that
you are running on your computer.
- If there is a specific error message, what does it say?
Be prepared to give this information to the technician by
phone, email or fax.
- What are the steps you take to reproduce the error?
- What time did you first notice the error?
- Did the error occur only once, consistently over a period
of time, or only when you do a certain thing?
- Can you reproduce the error on a separate computer?
- Know the priority status of your request
Support technicians get many requests during the course of the
day, often at the same time, with varying levels of urgency, and
these requests take time to resolve. If a request cannot be resolved
immediately, then it will be assigned an appropriate priority
level based on the type of problem to be resolved as soon as possible.
- Outages - Always top priority. If your
website or email is down, any good technician should drop
all other projects until this is resolved.
- Breakages - If a critical part of your
website becomes inoperable due to a server error, such as
a database for a shopping cart, this should always be addressed
with high priority.
- Time Sensitive Operations - If you need
something to be done within a certain time frame, such as
enabling or disabling a feature of your account, then you
should make this clear to the technician. The operation should
be performed within the prescribed time frame as long as a
higher priority issue does not arise.
- Ongoing Problems - If a particular problem
continues to occur for an extended period of time, its priority
should be raised as necessary the longer the problem goes
on.
- Non-Critical Operations - If your request
does not adversely affect the function of your services or
contain a time-sensitive element, it will receive the lowest
priority, but it still should be handled as soon as reasonably
possible.
- Allow an appropriate response time
As stated previously, most technicians have more than one problem
to handle at once, so once you have an idea of the priority level
of your request, allow a reasonable amount of time for it to be
resolved. Server errors should be resolved within hours to same
day, depending on the circumstances. Lower priority items which
can be quickly resolved should usually be handled by the next
day. If a request will require several hours of work to resolve,
expect it to take longer. A technician's job is to be constantly
interrupted all day, so such requests will usually be saved until
time permits or passed off to another available person to be completed.
Understand that any completion time estimate given to you is assuming
the absence of any higher priority requests intervening in the
process.
Most types of technical support requests should be answered with
an acknowledgement of completion. If you do not receive one or
are unable to determine on your own that your issue has been resolved
within a reasonable amount of time, then you should contact the
technician again to inquire about the status of your request.
- Be a pest if you have to, but be courteous
If your request is taking an unreasonable amount of time to be
resolved, then there is some truth to the old adage that "the
squeaky wheel gets the grease." If the technician can give
you a reasonable explanation for the extended time frame, such
as resolving a higher priority issue, then try to give them an
appropriate extension to resolve your request. If the explanation
for the delay is unsatisfactory and the problem continues to go
unresolved, you may need to ask for the assistance of another
technician. You should be assertive because your are paying for
your services, but do not be abusive. Technicians are human beings
too, and not all of them are going to respond well to your unpleasant
remarks. If the situation becomes bad enough that you truly believe
your anger is warranted, ask to speak with somebody else, describe
the unsatisfactory response you received, and request that your
issue be handled with the highest priority possible. If this doesn't
work, then it's time to consider switching service providers.
- Know the technician's responsibilities
A support technician at a hosting company is not necessarily responsible
for every possible problem you can have on the internet. He is
only responsible for resolving problems with the services that
his company provides to you. If the company only provides web
hosting and domain registration services, then they cannot be
held responsible for problems caused by website design flaws,
internet connection service outages, email addresses obtained
through other providers, or office network problems. Most good
technicians are willing to give you a limited amount of assistance
with these types of problems anyway, but it should not be expected
of them and you should know who else to call if the technician
determines that the problem is not within his realm of control.
- Don't be a hypochondriac
You should learn to help yourself whenever possible, because it's
almost always faster than asking somebody else for help. If you
are constantly asking for the same password or asking the technician
to perform the same task over and over again when you can learn
to do it yourself, you are wasting the technician's time and preventing
other people from being helped quickly and efficiently. Learn
from your mistakes and try not to repeat them. If you are always
making the same mistakes and asking somebody else to fix them,
you will quickly find yourself at the bottom of anybody's priority
list. If the technician explains to you how to do something, make
sure that the procedure is recorded and stored where you can find
it again. It's worth your extra time and his to do this if it
saves you both time later on a repetitive task.
Although
every case is unique, we believe that by following these guidelines
you will consistently receive faster and friendlier assistance on
most of your technical support requests.
©
Copyright 2005-2007 by Stacy Clifford
Stacy Clifford is the founder of ChiliPepperWeb.net
and has spent four years assisting customers in understanding how
their web services work.
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