Why We Don’t Have User Support
Joe M posted in Home Support on January 27th, 2010
User Support is a broad term.
Mostly it refers to anything that is not covered in the manual, that comes with your computer.
Sometimes, it may even encompass the stuff that is in the manual.
If your mouse doesn’t work… or you get an error… or a virus…
Or need to perform a certain task, and you don’t know how.
Those tasks are all considered User Support.
A few years back, it was a standard to get a year, or a few months, of User Support when you purchased a new PC.
In those days, you might spend a couple thousand dollars on a PC.
The cost of the PC paid for the operational costs of hiring the User Support personnel, along with any other operational costs.
These days… you can buy a PC for next to nothing.
The difference, now, is that the retail costs have been trimmed and optimized.
Most manufacturers no longer have User Support.
In order to sell consumers a desktop or a laptop at today’s prices…
The tradeoff is that manufacturers have cut their own costs.
For the most part, that means they are no longer paying a person to answer the phone and your questions.
What does that mean, for us, in the long run?
We spend a great deal more time, these days, researching and learning.
We find more computer-related books… tutorials… websites, etc.
Like it or not, this has become an era of self-support.
Believe it or not… there are still companies and consultants that have User Support offerings.
The difference is… they no longer come packaged with purchases… and are more expensive than ever before.
Having done my fair share of User Support… I can tell you…
Those that still work in the field have learned… it is definitely work.
And… the scope of what is provided, and to what extent is defined more clearly, than ever before.
Not too long ago… I got a call from someone that told me…
“I got someone to re-install everything. That was a month ago… I think they must have done something wrong, because I have a virus, again!”
I am curious, to see what happens in the User Support space, over the next year.