Technical Support
Technical support, also known as tech support or customer support, is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical support can now be conducted online or through chat.
Customer support specialists aid customers experiencing technical, software and/or hardware problems. Support duties and responsibilities typically include answering customers’ technical questions via phone and email. Support engineers are responsible for diagnosing and troubleshooting various technical issues.
Tech support is often subdivided into tiers, or levels, to better serve a business or customer base. The number of levels a business uses to organize their support group is dependent on the business’s needs regarding their ability to sufficiently serve their customers or users.
Structure:
The reason for providing a multi-tiered support system instead of one general support group is to provide the best possible service in the most efficient possible manner. Success of the organizational structure is dependent on the technicians’ understanding of their level of responsibility and commitment. Customer response time commitments, and when to appropriately escalate an issue and to which level must be understood. A common support structure revolves around a three-tiered tech support system. Remote computer repair is a method for troubleshooting software related problems via remote desktop connections.
Challenges:
Many systems today utilize open-source software. The book speaks to this in the context of how difficult this can be to manage. It’s not difficult to have an issue and the end user is not sure where the problem is. The better support infrastructure quickly cuts through the perceptions and gets to the root of the problem. When you do not have a good support model you can expect dissatisfaction and a difficult day at the office.
A common scam typically involves a cold caller claiming to be from a tech support department of a company like Microsoft. Such cold calls are often made from call centers based in India to users in English-speaking countries. Although increasingly these scams operate within the same country. The scammer will instruct the user to download a remote desktop program and once connected, use social engineering techniques involving Windows components. The caller then tries to persuade the victim that they need to pay for the computer to be fixed and then proceeds to steal money from the victim’s credit card.
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