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:
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:
Note the version of the program and the operating system that you are running on your computer.
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.
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.
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 you 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.
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.
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 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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