Photo by TheGiantVermin

I am the entire IT department at my company.  I have to know, or know how to find out, the answer to pretty much any tech related question I’m faced with.  I support about 50 people, 40 desktop computers, 4 servers, the network that connects them all together, and internal and external websites.  In other words, for all of these things I am the one who gets called; I am tech support.   I’m not used to calling tech support right away because more often than not I can solve my own problems.  Sometimes, however, the power to fix something is beyond my control and I have to appeal to someone else for help. From somebody with experience on both sides of the technical support equation, here are some ways to get what you need from technical support.

Last night I had to call the ISP we use for Internet access at home (a major phone company that provides DSL service in our area).  In the evenings we often watch something with Netflix’s Watch it Now; 30 Rock is our current TV show on Netflix obsession.  Over the previous week or two the quality of streaming video from Netflix has been very poor, like a cruddy YouTube video blown up too large.

At first I thought it could be a problem at Netflix, but in the evenings we experienced the problem, the DSL Reports Speed Tests suggested it was closer to our end. Everything was slow, not just Netflix.  Af first we thought the condition might be temporary, but when it persisted we finally had to ask for help.  This brings me to my first tech support tip.

Know The Problem

Understand what you’re trying to accomplish and why the issue you’re experiencing prevents you from completing it and what the general scope of the problem is.  For example, you might try to print something from Microsoft Word only to encounter an error message.  That’s a pretty simple problem to understand: the goal was to print and the problem was an error message and nothing being printed on the printer.  To determine the scope of the problem, you might try to print another document, or print from a different application, such as your email.  In my case, I knew that my Internet connection problems were not just limited to Netflix streaming, but seemed to be limited to the evenings.  Understanding the problem you’re having and its general scope helps you in my next two tips:

Attempt to Resolve the Problem Yourself

I don’t mean to suggest that you should not ask for help.  Sometimes in the process of attempting to understand the scope or nature of the problem a solution becomes obvious.  To continue the previous example, the printer that won’t print may be out of paper.  You laugh, but I’ve had that happen at my office.

“Nik, I can’t print!” he asked.

I like to start troubleshooting from the simplest problems first. “Does it have paper?” I asked.

“Oh, no it doesn’t! That fixed it!”

Do not go beyond your expertise or comfort level in case you make the problem worse, but at least be able to reproduce it if you can. In my case, our home network is rather complex, including no fewer than 3 wireless access points, so it was not inconceivable that the problem was our own and not our ISP’s.  I spent some time resetting hardware and checking configurations in my attempt to decide.

Any diagnostic steps you are able to perform will give you more information about the problem you’re having, and that will be of use when you do call tech support.

Be Specific

Communicate the problem with the tech support agent clearly and specifically.  Tell them in detail what the nature and scope of the problem is, and what you’ve done to attempt resolution, if anything.  These details will give the tech support agent the information he or she needs to help you.

I provided the agent helping me with the information I’ve given you so far, including numerical results from an online speed test I had performed just before calling.

Vague or hyperbolic information (”I can’t use my computer because nothing works and also it’s on fire!”) don’t help tech support help you.  It will only cause them to ask you to be specific.

Be Calm and Personable

You wouldn’t call technical support if your problems were not frustrating.  Nobody enjoys on-hold music, after all.  The person you eventually talk to, however, is another human being who wants to, and is being paid to, help you.  Try not to take out your frustrations on them.

If you can engage your tech support agent in a friendly and personable manner, you will relieve them from what can be an otherwise tedious job interacting with annoyed strangers for a few minutes, and the help you receive will be that much better.

Follow Instructions and Provide Feedback

You are the technical support agent’s eyes, ears and hands.  If you don’t follow instructions, do things that the technical support agent hasn’t requested, or fail to provide clear feedback as you go, you will frustrate the agent, yourself, and the process.

I have helped people that are very poor hands and eyes. I recall attempting to help a particular relative once.  After a lengthy process leading to a particular dialog box, the dialog appeared and before I had the chance to ask him to read the text of the dialog to me, he muttered, “a box came up, I’m clicking OK.”  We had to start again from the beginning.

A Happy Resolution

In the end the problem I was having with my DSL was congestion at the DSLAM, which was something the tech support agent I spoke with had to call her own next level support to resolve.  Thanks to my application of the applicable techniques above, however, my problem was handled much more easily than I expected.  The worst part of my tech support experience was the hold music.

Tagged as: tech support