24/7 Technical Support

Technical Support - What is it?

What is Tech support? It is a method of support that is related to technical issues. For example, if your camera is no longer working then you will seek this type of support. The type I will be talking about, however, is for computers.

Computers are amazing they do things for us that are sometimes really hard to do. Computers, for some people, cannot be lived without. Computers do however malfunction. Malfunctioning is a way of life. Computers are so composite and so complex, so every problem a computer has can be because of so many things. Tech support agents need to find out which of the many possibilities is the actual root the problem.

Tech Support – Why does it take so long to fix issues?

Ever seen a TV show or been to a doctor that was trying to diagnose a problem you have; instead of just saying “your problem is ‘x’” they will say we should get a blood test, or we need to do a cat scan… The point of this is to rule out different possibilities so they can narrow it down. Computers are the same way. I fix computers as a hobby. Problems people tell me can’t be fixed by saying, do this, then this, then that. The problems need to be researched and ruled out, and even played around with, to find the exact issue.

If your computer won’t start windows, what can you do? Right? Well when it comes to fixing it Tech support need to make sure that your computer is as it should. What if you accidentally told BIOS not to boot from the hard drive? This would cause windows not to load. Tech support gets beat up on in many different ways. People think they are snooping around in their computer, and feel violated, what they don’t realize is that without looking at certain files or folders there is no way to diagnose the problem.

A lot of the time seeing what the user has done to change things in the past few days helps us to diagnose a problem. In the case of a doctor, if you go to a doctor with a rash and you want to know what it is, and you don’t tell him you have been on a hike in a place that might have had poison ivy, well then, that will only make his work harder. If he starts digging into your past and you end up telling him, oh I went on a hike, blah blah blah, and then he will realize this is the result of poison ivy.

Technical Support – worth the money?

Tech support is known for being expensive. You call a computer technician to fix your computer, he will usually charge anywhere from 100-200 dollars an hour. Most issues are not fixed within the first hour. Most of the first hour is ruling out possibilities. Another obstacle that can get in the way of fixing someone’s issue is if the client’s computer is slow, then it will take longer for the repairer to do what he needs to do.

I’ve gone on calls where the client had a computer that was Windows XP, and they had internet that was 20 kbps. Now, if you don’t know computers that average speed for a normal internet connection is about 250 kbps. So loading a page like Google took about 10 seconds. This really slowed down my production, and did not allow me to fix the issue fast.

Tech Support – is there a better alternative?

Tech support from hiring a guy can cost you about 300-400 dollars per issue. However, there is an alternative that not only will work, but will be a good alternative. This alternative has not been made the standard thing to do yet, but it’s getting there. I’m talking about Remote help. There are companies out there that can help with your problems, and the one that comes to mind only costs 299 dollars for a whole year of service. You pay a one-time fee and they will fix all of your issues for that whole year, plus they speed up your computer, by optimizing it properly.

So to end this off, if you want to get good bang for your buck, then go remote!