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Tech Support - To Phone or Not To Phone?

Posted by Cliff on from the which-method-do-you-prefer dept.

flyingember asks: "With years of experience with tech support I have yet to come to a conclusion as to which form of support to use. Phone, or not phone. For some companies their online chat is great, I used it often with HP since you were much more likely to get through fast during a peak time of the day and the support was high quality. I recently used Philip's online chat to ask about a product feature (or lack of) and they demanded a name, zip and phone number, then claimed the product wasn't supported through chat and that I had to call when I refused to give this. I've had mixed luck with phone support. From half-hour hold times and little knowledge with some companies to well-staffed techs such as with installing a DSL account or getting the Internet on my phone. I have used email chat with some companies, and it does the job as well as email does allowing lots of detail but has lag sometimes. Which do you think is better, support over the phone or support another way?"

5 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Press # if you are using a touch-tone phone by P-Nuts · · Score: 1, Funny

    If you would like support by phone, press 1.

    If you would not like support by phone, press 2.

    While you wait for someone to tell you to reboot your computer, please hold and listen to some muzak.

    1. Re:Press # if you are using a touch-tone phone by Sheriff+Fatman · · Score: 3, Funny
      Or the immortal
      "Thankyou for calling technical support. If your cup holder is broken, please press 1. If you would like a knowledgeable support person, please enter the dotted-quad representation of a /28 netmask."
      (with apologies to whomever I stole this from... it's from a .sig somewhere but I can't find the source!)
      --
      -- Open Source: It's mad, but you don't have to work here to help.
  2. Other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Which do you think is better, support over the phone or support another way?

    Definitely "another way".

    However, I'm not telling you what other way I would choose. You'll have to submit a new Ask Slashdot to find the answer.

  3. btw by Tumbleweed · · Score: 3, Funny

    That was for "Internet in a Box," you punk kids. Back when we had to piece together our uuencoded porn bits by HAND before we could decode them! BY HAND!!!

  4. support? by holzp · · Score: 2, Funny

    this is slashdot, we use open source software, what is this "support" you speak of? Is that like editing the code?