Forums; the new tech support?

[TDK1044]

I believe that the recent down time of this Forum, and the frustration that it caused some users, proves that Forums such as this are in fact the new technical support of the 21st Century.

I'm a member of the forum for my computer manufacturer and model, the forum for my video card, the forum for both games that I have on the computer, and the Ulead Video Studio forum.

The technical support available on such forums is awesome. I have been helped many times and I have helped others to resolve numerous issues on all the forums that I'm a member of. Nobody now has to wait days wondering if they'll ever get a reply to a question, they usually get good feedback within hours of posting the question. They obviously have to sift through the responses and make a judgement call as to whether the response makes sense or not, but the same was also true in dealing with traditional tech support.

Setting up such forums is a much smarter move by companies than out sourcing your technical support jobs to useless call centers in other Countries where nobody really knows the product.

I believe that we'll start to see many companies not offering 'formal' technical support going forward, but instead go the much cheaper route of setting up a Forum such as this with some moderators and a few contacts within Research and Development.

Personally, I'm all for it.

Terry

[CycleWriter]

I often check a forum for a problem before I ever bother with tech support. Most tech support people have a hard time going off script and actually fixing a problem, or the time between responses for e-mail tech support is intolerable. A forum can often get you to someone who has had the EXACT same problem and already found a fix. For instance, when I had a problem caused by Ulead with my LightScribe drives disappearing, I went back and forth for days with HP to get a resolution. In frustration, I logged on here and had a fix within minutes. Meanwhile, HP had designated my drive as defective and wanted to send me a replacement. The fix I found in here was a simple registry hack and it worked. Forum users are often lightyears ahead of what tech support has been trained for. More companies should have their own forums for this and to get real feedback on how their products are being used and what problems are being encountered. Unfortunately, the liabilities and problems often keep companies from setting up a forum of their own and those that do often have a plethora of disclaimers attached to them.

[TDK1044]

All points well made, Cycle Writer. I think a simple Forum legal disclaimer along the same lines as accepting a license is fine.

It's so helpful to be able to communicate with people who have the same software/hardware issues that you do and be able to exchange experiences and resolutions to those issues.

[Ron P.]

I also agree, that tech-support forums are the way of the future. Heck, they appear to be the way of the now. I have a simple question though...How many forums are staff/moderated by acutal company staff, and when we are talking about software, developers? I don't visit many forums so I'm not sure if there are many. I have mentioned this before, and I do so because it seems so uncommon, and extrodinary. I have some software made by Swish. There Support Forum is staffed and moderated by actual staff and developers. It is a real neat process they go through to develop, test and release their products.

1. They release a Beta version, download it, and work it.
2. Bugs found in Betas are posted to a designated forum on their support board. You have to provide a work file for them to examen. If the issue can be reproduced, it is marked as a bug and fixed!!!
3. After a short time another Beta version released, same process..
4. When no bugs are being reported for a period of time, then the Beta version is elevated to an official release, and it is placed on their main website to be downloaded/purchased. (Oh I've owned this product for about 6-7 yrs and never, ever paid for an upgrade, which have been numerous).

But my ephasis is that the developers are very much interested in their products. I think this comes from the founder, who is also found on the boards.

In todays tech world, I think that businesses, especially computer and software makers, would do there reputation and bottom dollar well by adapting to this way of support. At the cost of maintaining a few webservers, they actually are able to have a huge staff, that costs them nothing. Sounds like a way cut down on overhead...