Where I work we pay extra for premium support of our printers and other various hardware and software applications. It is pretty valuable many times and makes our job in IT a lot more efficient.

Personally though ... nope. I would NEVER pay extra for support of my hardware or software. People pay me!

mysticgeek.htg

I work for a software company that offers offshore support for end users and domestic support (at a premium) for "elite" users. Both models offer callback service. Other than a less "holistic" approach (they will resolve the issue you present them with, not the cause of the symptom), the OSPs offer just as high quality service. But many customers are unwilling to receive their support from someone with an accent. These are the same customers who are unwilling to search an external knowledge base for the answer to avoid the call in the first place.

Slackferno

When this question is still getting asked, i wonder if companies pay any attention at all. Stop seeing customer support as an expense! It is the cheapest (good/bad) marketing out there, and damn effective too.

a0peter

@HeartBurnKid: Let me expand on my previous statement by saying that crappy support is one of the reasons that I've mostly switched over to free (as-in-beer and as-in-speech) software. If I'm not getting support from the people who made the software, then what am I paying for in the first place? A bunch of bits?

I will pay for support for free software, if I think it's necessary. I will not pay for support for commercial software -- frankly, I consider that double-dipping. Good, quality support should be part of the package. Period.

HeartBurnKid

The question is actually asking if you are willing to pay TWICE for tech support. We are already paying for it once when we buy the product. What's next?

"We can't really help you right now because you've only paid for the first tier of customer support. Our extra-special support is only $50 a year more..."

blmjr

JTimberman: Normally I would agree with you, but after two system board replacements in an iBook in three months, my girlfriend is pretty darn glad she went with the extended AppleCare plan.

andy mikula

It entirely depends on the scenario - having worked for...let's say a 'major PC manufacturer' in the premium phone support department, I can tell you for a fact that even when you're paying $129 for support with one incident, the quality of service is entirely dependant on who the call gets routed to. There were maybe three or four people out of 300 in my department that I would trust to fix my system without me there, and maybe 10 more if I was watching over their shoulder.

Jaxun has it right - the people you want to talk to don't last long in the organizations; it's simply too big a business to effectively manage all of the resources. As a result, quantifiable metrics become more imporant than anything, and customer satisfaction is not nearly as high as call time / sales percentage / etc. on the list.

If you're looking for support with multiple pieces of equipment from different vendors, you're definitely going to want to get in touch with a local consultant. More often than not it will end up being cheaper than calling whichever big box store is closest, and they'll know what questions to ask when talking to warranty support / ISPs / whathaveyou.

andy mikula

I don't pay for technical support other than whatever comes with the product(s) I buy, as I am quite technical as it is.

However, I will pay more for products that are more reliable, or easier to work with, and thus require less technical support or tomfoolery.

When it comes to computer products, I don't buy extended warranties. Most products have a 1 year warranty. Given the usable lifespan of the typical component or device, 1 year is plenty of time for new and better products to come out, and I'd rather just buy an upgrade which often costs less than the extra warranty/support.

jtimberman

So, if I'm reading the question right here, it's "How much would you pay for what you used to get for free?"

HeartBurnKid

No, I would not pay extra. I expect the same level of support that USED to be standard before the race to the bottom that has affected every aspect of our economy in the last 25 years or so.

I don't even bother with tech support any more. I just go to Google Groups; I get much better service there from people who actually use the product in question.

However, I am still forced to call support for banks, credit cards and such, and we all know what a great load of suck that is.

@Georgiaboot: I don't care where they are as long as I can understand them. Many American support staffers can barely speak English either, or read the boilerplate text they're giving you.

Rhywun

Oh, another comment. I actually do tech support for a living, so I'm really getting a kick out of these replies, ha ha. I really do tech support; I do support and testing for a small software company.

We offer phone support, in house, which is a rarity. I would really like to charge people 5 dollars a 'ticket' to call us and get help. Why?

A) it would keep a lot of people from calling us for things they don't really need to get help with immediately, over the phone, with a live human. Unfortunately, our tech support is a limited resource and it takes away from other things we can be doing. The only other option is to downgrade our service to some outsourced company somewhere, which is a terrible sacrifice.

B) It would help compensate us for providing a very important service.

HawkWolf

For service-based customer issues support, like for a cellular phone provider, absolutely not. I would never pay a service provider like that extra money just so they would fix my problem. I'm paying them for the service and the support to use it.

Here is an example: my mom has AT&T Yahoo! DSL. (DSL run by yahoos?) Lately, something has started going wrong with the connection. Specifically, her modem appears to lose the ethernet connection to her router, rendering the connection useless. My mom can't fix this problem, and neither can I - at least not without being there in person. She called AT&T and spoke to someone for half an hour, who was nearly unintellible (although spoke proper English). Then, she was bounced to their 'PC support' line, and a person came on saying she *COULD* fix the problem if my mom would pay $99 dollars and let them connect remotely to the PC.

I would not pay someone $99 dollars to connect remotely to my PC, only to find out that my modem was broken and charge me for a new one as well. That's ridiculous. If AT&T knew what the problem was enough that they were confident they could fix it, they should have been willing to provide that information to my mom so she (or someone else competent) could fix it. Or, they should charge extra for a service plan, so they can afford technical support staff who cost more than $1 a day USD to employ on the other side of the world.

For a software product? Maybe. It really depends. I'd really like to have service contracts, where you pay and get REAL SERVICE, not this 'oh you gotta do it for free' stuff. I almost never call tech support, and only rarely email them.

HawkWolf

It's funny to me, after having worked in IT support for about 10 years now, that people want gourmet skills and services at McDonald's prices.

Really good tech support folks have a rare combination of people skills and technical savvy, and the innate ability to think outside the box/script. They also have good instincts, so they can often follow a hunch and get at the problem from a route nobody else might have thought about. People with that combination don't stay in clearinghouse support environments for very long, and companies who recognize a gem of a support person are going to pay them more than they will the first-line support drone. Where does that money come from? Do they charge more for their product, or do they break that out of their pricing structure and make it a premium?

Having said all that, I won't pay for (or even use) tech support unless it's a proprietary system I don't have the time to learn, and is mission critical to my employer. My philosophy is that if I can't get it to work (after spending X hours doing my own research and experimentation), then whatever it is that's giving me grief isn't worth the trouble.

jaxun

How about an RTFM code? Buried deep in the manual or help files a code that says, 'Did this solve your problem? If no dial 888-xxx-xxxx and press #123 for further support." and this gets you directly to tier 2.

That alone would help weed out the people who forgot to plug it in in the first place and shorten, at least, the hold times, if not the 'Did you plug it in' questions from tier 1. They already pay the Tier 2 people to help with this level of problems, and it'd cut down the overhead of the smart people wasting the Tier 1's time.

muliebris

YEs, I bought a dell xps 410 because of the better tech support. ITs much easier getting help and a parts replacement from somebody who knows what they are doing.

majortom1981

Heck No! Technical support should work to begin with!

easy2panic

I work in the support field; quite frankly a lot of the problem stems from sales people undercutting the cost of the product to get it in stores. This slice into our margins means that the operations managers are not able to hire enough people, with enough skill to do the job. Thus outsourcing. Not to mention that manufacturing has already cut costs to the bone by using the lowest bidder on parts (meaning failure spikes on the product) and labor. These combined factors mean cheaper products with crappier reliability. However it is not limited to hard products; software is now becoming prone to the exact same problems even though it lacks the 'hard' failures.

The real issues is that the consumer no longer appreciates quality and is not willing to pay extra for a good product. Until we break the disposable product cycle and consumerist concepts around a 'good deal' we will be stuck in this spiral. Poor coding is based on Microsoft's atrocious development cycle, which in turn has broken the rest of the software industry as it tries to be competitive. Coupled with the fact that so much software is written FOR windows (which is already broken) they are introducing more variables.

x40sw0n

Why should I pay extra? People should support their product, and not give me some idiot if I dont pay for the premium help.

holymogwai

Nope. That sounds like a racket to me. "Let's give them bad support, so they'll pay more for our 'premium' package."

Instead, I let customer support be a major factor in whether or not I ever buy a company's product or service again.

fintach

@Outtacontext: For a scenario in which you want trustworthy support for multi-manufacturer systems, this is when you should hire a local computer consultant (kinda like the Geek Squad, but actually, you know ....... good)

I paid extra for tech support from ViaTalk when I joined after SunRocket stranded me (along with thousands of others). The flood of business at ViaTalk caused wait times to exceed 1.5 hours - sometimes 2. So I chose to pay an extra $1.99 per month to cut to the front of the line. To me, the extra $2 was worth the couple hours of my time NOT being spent on hold.

heavylee-again

I WOULD pay for better support if I trusted the company to give better support. However, I tried doing this by buying from Alienware years ago. At the time they were considered to be a premium company with excellent computers. It was a horrible disaster. Poor products, horrible customer service, awful phone support(outsourced), etc.

At this point, I'm just geeky enough to fix anything that's broken and warranty be damned.

And if it's a substantial purchase($100+) it must have reviews and ratings backing it as a good product. If it's a very substantial purchase($1k+) it MUST be rated by Consumer Reports or I will hire an independent inspector(mechanic, home inspector, etc) to proffer an opinion.

daniel.j.doughty

I work for Cisco Systems and we have a higher level of support for customers that want to pay the extra, it is called HTTS support which stands for High Touch Technical Support, with these support contracts you are given a package of service level agreements which amounts to generous hand holding for any case you open until it is resolved.

Although I don't think you should have to pay extra for it, when the customers get it, they love it and don't want to go back to their regular old support anymore. I think more companies should offer it.

charlestips

I would like a company that actually keeps track of a tech support ticket so that I don't have to describe the problem every time I get on the phone.

Craig

I probably would not pay for extra support cause most of it is a scam and they really don't help you.

On the other hand I (Might) pay if they changed these things~

~Put your tech support in the USA, I can't stand getting on the phone with some Indian guy who can't speak English; sorry guys but you really can't understand them!

~Don't have me on hold for 25 minutes, I could probably figure the problem out in that time

~Having to give them every bloody detail about you just to ask "the cable did not come with the item"

~Arrogance; I have found a bunch of these tech support people are plain and simple arrogant. Get some people that are friendly and understand

GeorgiaBoot

I've stuck with a company before because of their high-quality tech support (TDS Metrocom for my phone and DSL). That's part of the service, and enhances my impression of the overall service. I've always had a problem, though, with companies that try to charge an extra fee for technical support. My stance is: It's your product that doesn't work. When I paid for it, it was under the assumption that it was a working product. Why should I have to pay more to get me to where I should have been in the first place?

FLEB

I'd pay more if the service worked so well that I didn't need tech support at all.

rasbach

I'd definitely pay for support which would guarantee a non- scripted-from-the-knowledge-base answer.

Me: My account still says "evaluation". I've purchased the full version and gone through the steps but...
Them: To upgrade your evaluation copy you must purchase a retail license from [wedontcare.com]

hometoast

I'd pay extra for a tech (and the company s/he works for) who was willing to take a holistic approach to solving tech problems that involve more than one vendor.

For example: trying to solve a home local area network issue. The problem could be with your router or, say, your ISP. Wouldn't it be nice if you called Verizon and they said "Oh, you're using Airport, let me connect you with our Airport specialist.

I'd pay premium just for the reduction in hair loss (I don't have much to begin with).

PS I know the problems inherent in this wish but I can dream can't I?

Outtacontext

No, b/c I usually know more than tech support. Also, even if they properly diagnose a problem, it's usually very expensive to fix. even if you have a warranty, often, you're fighting w/ them b/c it's in their incentive to not fix/replace.

tech support used to be good when IBM owned thinkpads. I used to have a T21. it came with 3 year transferrable service, so although I bought it on ebay, it was covered, no questions asked. Got someone on the phone in 2 mins that spoke english and knew his stuff. tech problem? they just mailed you a box for free, and it came back fixed in a week, really!

this kind of support should be default and not something you have to pay for. Oh, how I miss IBM and their support!

qrius

Instead of adding to the endless list of problems consumers experience, I just want to say that, decent technical support adds value to a product and as such I would be in favour of spending a little more for it.

BUT, it should be implicit to the purchase because any supplemental service you pay for will inevitably degrade to the point where you are paying for nothing.

The bottom line always wins and once the company has a standing reputation they would certainly try to reduce their operating costs, starting with small shortcuts, then before they completely gut it and tarnish their reputation they'd eventually include their "extra" tech support in the price as a selling feature and the endless loop would continue. This is how it always happens.

Fierock

@daniel.j.doughty: Yes, I just love it when you *know* the person on the other end of the phone is following a script.

And to those above, yes, I agree. Hiring a good consultant to make two different systems be nice with each other is probably the way to go. But, then, just how do you find such a person (and one who knows the systems you're trying to use together)?

Outtacontext

I don't think you should need to a good company has good tech support. I generally don't stay with companies that outsource they're tech support or web development (I HATE websites that suck balls when it comes to help & information) yes, I'm talking about you verison!

Swizzler121

@Slackferno: Be honest with yourself. People don't dislike accents, they dislike people who can not communicate well. If you had stoned guys who spoke English on the phone I wouldn't want to talk to them either.

The expectation that a ESL speaker will be able to not only communicate with a customer, but help them solve a problem that is filled with difficult and highly specific jargon is unrealistic. Even worse, the customer service agent is expected to be able to speak efficiently to high-end business users and grandmothers who can barely plug computers in.

Look, to prove my point, interview 5 "domestic" college graduates with degrees in Russian, Spanish and French. Have them explain a technical problem in their foreign language. Have them explain the problem quickly to a high-end user and then have them break it down so a 5 year old will understand it. Then you'll understand why what you're expecting these poor guys in India to do and THEN you'll understand why most customers despise it.

daniel.j.doughty

I'm going to agree with Andy.

As a user and consumer, you should "pay more" for tech support by hiring a neighborhood IT freelancer to help with your problems.

A technician making (say) less than $20 will not be very good; put that fellow on a telephone and their usefulness drops to nil.

alchemism

Is possible to pay Google for Gmail support?

jruday

Just recently I had to contact tech support for two separate hosting companies. Startlogic is cheap but I had to wait over ten minutes to get someone on the phone. Within the same day I called MediaTemple which is more expensive and got someone on the phone within a minute. If you follow the 'time is money' philosophy, paying a little extra can do you some good.

joewhitsitt

@ispytodd:
On the other hand, so far as the car analogy goes, at least there is some amount of competition when it comes to "support" for your car. If nothing else, even your Ford dealerships are semi-independent, and if you don't like one you can try another.

Computer companies get savings in other ways that other industries can only dream of - if I had to call Ford HQ every time something went wrong with my car, and then pay for my car to be shipped to them so they could take a look at it, I'd think they were insane. If, two weeks later, they sent me back someone else's car "refurbished", I'd (pardon the pun) blow a gasket.

But, that's standard operating procedure at most tech companies.

Binks

"I'm guessing that a vast majority of phone support issues are not related to manufacturer/prover defects (well maybe MS) but user problems."

You're exactly right. The support I did was for software and 3rd party hardware configuration, as well as virus and spyware removal. A dead hard drive or bad RAM is easy to diagnose and replace, and there is a resonable chance that it's the fault of the manufacturer. In the case of spyware and the like, I think it's completely justified to charge extra. When you buy car, the manufacturer isn't paying for your insurance so it's replaced when you drive into a pole - it seems that people think that would be completely reasonable when it comes to computers, however.

andy mikula

Charging, even a little bit, would surely encourage more research and thought on the users end. I know we think we're all geniuses here on LH, but I'm guessing that a vast majority of phone support issues are not related to manufacturer/prover defects (well maybe MS) but user problems. Purchasing a product does not entitle you to a 1-on-1 personal support guru. does it? Technology is complicated! I don't remember getting a free support line with my car 'uhh my car wont go. something blinking and i hear a noise. whut do i do?'

ispytodd

Reminds me of when I used to work for an envelope company. We had innumerable complaints about lightweight paper warping that was used in one line of envelopes.

The lab worked on this for decades without success. Then our fearless leader simply changed the name of the paper from "lightweight" to "heavyweight." No more complaints. Ah, that's why CEO's are "worth it" and techs languish in labs without hope.

So how would you know if they just prefixed their tech service with the "premium" adjective and charged you more?

Capone

I've worked in support for a long time. There were wide ranging differences in quality levels between the various companies I've worked for. I would say that more often than not: small company=good support and large company=poor support, and a lot of people will probably agree. It makes sense because large hardware/software companies or service providers have a huge support volume (email/phone) to dead with. This in turn leads to poor quality of support. On the other hand, small companies can often give you cheerful, personalized, high quality support. This is not to say that large companies never have good support. It's just that most of the time the Tier I reps who answer the phone read from a script and you have to be "escalated" to a TierII/III person before you reach someone that can listen and has the knowledge/tools to resolve your issue (usually someone not outsourced).

If a company has a huge support volume or outsources, I believe the only way to really achieve a realistic level of support, where people are actually fixing customers' issues, is with giving support people the right tools, training, and empowerment. I'm sure you're saying, "No duh!". However, in most cases reps are thrown into a "sea of support" with no "life jacket". Most times, outsourced support people are given bare bones training, little (if any) tools, and very little (if any) empowerment to help you. They are really there to answer the phone and put your issue into a black hole where you'll eventually give up and sink into a pit, eventually accepting fate - a poor level of support. It ends up being a situation where they are able to resolve a tier 0.5 level of support (which means they are not really offering any support).

To answer the question... I believe people would pay for betting support not because they actually want to or feel it's right, but because they are desperate or work in a corporate environment where time matters. Paying would only matter if that $ is put towards more training and resources to equip report where domestic or outsourced.

reeboblue

@x40sw0n: I'm willing to pay a little extra for quality. However, "quality" means that the product works well and is documented well, thus rendering "tech support" useless. Sadly, because of the cycle you cite, I don't trust big companies and manufacturers to give me good tech support. Before I buy, I read reviews and browse forums of the "community of users".

However, I do rely on big companies and manufacturers to give me a good return policy.

Posco Grubb

Being a computer technician, I don't really have a need for technical support to help me solve a problem. But what is nice is when the parts replacement. I'd pay extra for the support if it includes parts replacement....considering my luck with electronics.

tinkernut

For full disclosure, we pay for premium support at the office. The time it takes us to fix things is more costly than having a tech-support team on standby.

..ak

Yes, I am willing to pay for better tech support but not as an add-on.

I continue to stay with the slightly expensive VerizonDSL because I get immediate and expert customer support. I stay with my current landlord at a higher rent because he takes care of issues like I was family. I use ThinkPads because they fixed my laptop (standard warranty too) in 48 hours. I like Dell desktops because it's easy to find drivers on Dell's website.

However, if I need to get quality tech support the issue isn't with the cost of the service, but with the quality of the product. Then it doesn't matter how good tech support is because I won't be using their product/services anymore.

..ak

I would pay just to be able to skip level one and level two tech support. I hate answering all the idiot questions when I can easily describe the problem in a few sentences to someone who accepts that I know what I am talking about.

The Consultant

It is sad state that we have come to this point, but the reality is that if you want knowledgeable, friendly and understandable tech support, you might have to pay extra for it. People grip about the additional cost for such a service but the fact is that we the consumers have partially brought this upon ourselves with our buying habits. We aways want to pay the least possible amount of money for something no matter the means it took to force the price so low. And since companies still want to make a nice profit, they need to scale back in operational areas, such as tech or customer support to remain profitable. This translates into more outsourcing and everything that goes with that, which is rarely good for the consumer.

Thus, it should be no surprise that I would pay an additional fee for premium phone service, with in reason and only for certain products. However, because I am paying a fee I don't necessarily expect the world in return, just improvement in some areas. For a paid premium service I would be happy with the following:

* A well-trained support staff who can handle my issue without having to escalate my call to a more experienced tech, thus forcing me to regurgitate all the information again to someone new, with no guarantee that this process will not happen again.
* The support department is located in the USA, so I can easily understand the person and they, more importantly, can understand me.
* There is a limited wait time to reach a tech, and if they are especially busy an option to leave a message for call back is given. Someone will definitely call me back within the hour.
* In instances were the problem/issue cannot be resolved in one phone call, that all follow-up phone calls are handled by the original tech.
* The same tech calls me back if we are disconnected for some reason, sparing me the call back.

These are the fundamental issue important to me, and to many others, as other comments indicated. It would be nice if on premium items, such as computer, your account was assigned to a specific rep, like they do at Amex for Platinum or Black Card Members. But that would be a bonus.

I think it is unrealistic to believe that we can return to the how customer/tech support was in the past, as in what seems like eons ago. I think they is certainly instances were customer/tech support can be brought in house again, when customers complain enough as they did with Dell computers a few years ago. And, yes, there was an improvement in service when they did that, but considering where they were coming from it was not hard. But even before Dell outsourced, I had one of their lovely computers, and even then their tech support was horrible. I always wondered how they got these so-called gold star rating for service. I never experienced even once well handled call. So, if you want better service, consider embracing the idea of paying for it, and if you don't want to then you better expect nothing more than mediocre service.

captainsky

How about a "parts line" for those who know what they are talking about to get an RMA / part shipped without any of the other garbage.

You don't need a "tech" to take a part order - just someone who can speak English.

tawker

No I wouldn't be willing to pay more for gold support. But I would be willing to leave a company for bad support.

I own a company myself. A great deal of any product or services value is in the support the company provides with it. Without that value of support I would not have any clients.

Unless I had a monopoly. Like cable companies. Or certain software companies. Or...(fill in the blank here). Then I wouldn't give a damn. Why should I? Support just cuts into my profit margin. And nobodies gonna offer that perk and take away my market share.

So screw 'em! That's why I pay all those lobbyists!

molife

No, I wouldn't pay more for tech support. I'm tech-savvy, so if I'm calling support about a product, that means that it's either exceedingly badly designed or broken. As mentioned above, it's obviously the company's responsibility to get it to work. Fortunately, there is an alternative. If you use free (as in speech, rather than as in beer) products, there's invariably a group of enthusiasts who can provide you with free high-class personal support via IRC. For things I'm good at, I help people. For things I suck at, I get help until I'm good at them. This system works for me. The only time I have to call the manufacturer's support about a product is when I *know* that it's broken. Then, as soon as I get through to a human I explain the problem and tell them what I need:
'Hi, I have a XYZ5000 with serial number 12345678. The widget is clearly burned out because it can't foo or bar, but the baz and bat are working fine. I gazonked the bop, but it's just giving me quux. I'm still in warranty, so I'm going to need an RMA number.'
They either understand (and therefore agree) or don't understand. If they don't, they either help out of fear, or I sense fear, and request a manager. Managers fear non-idiots, and normally have sufficient understanding that its possible to explain that you're right. Either way, I get the thing replaced or refunded.

The real problem is when you're calling about a *service* that doesn't seem to be working. It could be DSL, a credit card, or your cell phone connection, but the point is that something's wrong and - even if you had the expertise to do so - you simply do not have access to the system that needs fixing. There has been more than one occasion on which I patiently call my ISP thinking 'give me a shell on your box, and, by dawn, I'll either have fixed it or tell you what resource you need more of.' There is no real solution here. You can't fix it; they can't fix it; and they can't telly you anything useful. I sympathise. If I'm running a system, it'll inevitably crash from time to time. I'll have made some effort to make backups, but there might still be downtime. The only thing that the customer can do is move between providers until the monthly fee matches the uptime and the features. It's sad but true.

Flamsmark

@..ak: I continue to stay with the slightly expensive VerizonDSL because I get immediate and expert customer support.

Yes, but what a problem with your Verizon DSL really has to do with your Verizon phone line? Then you're up sh*t creek. Just to be clear I'd like to say the magic word: silos. It's one thing if two different companies refuse to help you problem solve. But it's quite another when the SAME company refuses because it's not their division.

BTW, I'd like to add a big bonus point to Verizon FIOS. Their phone, TV, and internet divisions are all within the same silo and even talk with each other. Every time I've had to call their tech support for help with any one of these three services I've gotten stellar service. Quite honestly, I'm as amazed as anyone.

Outtacontext

Having different levels of service is very common in commercial software/hardware. For our business-critical servers at work, we have guaranteed 4 hour response time 365 days a year. But we DO pay quite a bit for it, which is easily justified since our company needs these services up pretty much all the time.

Also, commercial software usually comes with "maintenance", which includes support as part of the contract, and many commercial vendors sell tiered support or by-incident support.

Consumer-grade stuff, the service is horrible because having commercial-quality support would raise prices too much.

And to the OSS/Free Software people, the level of support you get can vary widely. You can get awesome, helpful people who really are great, or uber-nerds who tell you "RTFM, n00b".

enjar

@andy mikula: The problem is, this question is asking the wrong people to pay that extra premium. It's asking people to pay for support that won't treat you like a total newbie; i.e. the ones that will help you with the most technical problems that are probably caused by hardware and software defects without walking you through "The Script" first.

@enjar: In the uber-nerds' defense, people write the manual specifically so you can read them and solve your own problem, rather than going straight to the forum and asking, "How do I turn it on?" for the 10,000th time. It gets rather frustrating when, instead of people taking a minumum of effort, they just find a public forum and ask the same damn question again, demanding that someone help them personally and within the next 20 minutes because their time is too damn important to spend it reading and learning.

In fairness, we're all n00bs at some point, and I've found I get better responses if I have a somewhat apologetic tone to my newbie question; for example, "I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm new at this, and the manual doesn't seem to cover it, so..." The problem often isn't necessarily that the newbie asks a question that's answered in the docs, but that they're downright rude about it and/or just plain stupid (if you use "u" for "you" when asking for technical help, you're the latter).

HeartBurnKid

Not to mention that the average caller ranges anywhere from absolute incompetence to some technical skills, rarely do you get a valid question as a tech support agent. The rest of your time is spent wading through a sea of bologna which would of course make you sound like a tired drone who wouldn't give a damn if you cussed them up one way and down another. For some reason customers calling a support line seem to think they can demand all answers without providing a cent of information about their issue. Information you provide to the agent also serves as a good nanny to make sure that the agent is doing what they are supposed to be doing and not just hanging up on people. People calling tech support rarely have the necessary patience it takes to diagnose an issue, and forget all sense of humanity when they don't have to look the person in the face. A tech support agent is also HIGHLY restricted by what they can and cannot tell the customer. Sometimes you can easily solve a customer's issue but for either legal or reputable reasons you are not allowed to tell a customer what they need to hear.

kismatastrophy

I work at a company that produces Enterprise Software. We offer both Standard Support and Designated Support. Designated Support means that you have a designated technician that takes all of your issues. Our customers love the single point of contact. They also get enhanced support for escalation and patch request management. The one downside is that because Designated Support pays more, Standard Support will get less priority on their issues. Therefor the more a company offers a premium support, the more regular customers will suffer and be forced to go to premium support. Its a great way to up sell your service.

crink

Verizon actually has a service called "Premium Technical Support" [I know this because I'm one of the PTS agents]

A lot of DSL customers call about things that are related to the Internet but aren't really verizon's responsibility [VPNs, DVRs, viruses, LAN setup, Wireless Cards & software, etc] and expect support.. Verizon decided to give it to them for 9.99/month unlimited subscription or a one time 64.99 per issue charge..

Customers are generally thrilled with the service, so I would say yes, people are definitely willing to pay for premium service.

more about verizon premium tech. support:
- [newscenter.verizon.com]
- [business.verizon.net]

elorg

No, because here is how it works.

Currently, any given company pays Customer Service Jim $10.00 to handle my issues terribly. This $10.00 comes from the money they charge me for the Service.

Now, let's say they charge me 5 bucks extra for premium customer service. Will they pay Jim $15.00 to give me better service? Muwahwhahwahwha. No. They will make some cosmetic change, or maybe move me to a special line where I only have to wait 5 minutes for awful service rather than an hour for awful service, and they add the $5 to their P / L and try to ride it out until the next Customer Service firestorm occurs.

Rinse and repeat.

My less snarky point is that I wouldn't mind paying a little extra if I thought it would actually result in better service, but it won't.

blueoysterjoe