rtage in people who can provide adequate tech support. The average salary of a tech support employee is $8.50 an hour. These jobs have been compared to a sweatshop.A good solution for the vendor is to provide web based chat between the customer and support rep. This costs half as much as phone support, at about $5 to $7 an incident, because a rep can handle multiple requests at once. Another great way for vendors to try and help the consumer fix their problem is to have online FAQ s and troubleshooting tips. This is the most cost effective way to help the customer at about $1 or less per incident. While web based support might save the PC companies money, it has been a disappointment to many users. The most costly form of technical support is on site service calls. Vendors will do anything to not have to dispatch the truck. A new type of technical support is the remote control technology that Dell, Gateway, IBM, and other manufacturers now use. This technology allows a technician to access your system over an internet connection and obtain information about your PC. In most cases it also lets support reps run diagnostic tests on a PC and download patches or update drivers that may solve a software problem. During this whole process, the user can chat with the technician. The bottom line with this is that some people will always prefer to talk and some people would rather just find their solution on the web. If the web is a more effective medium, more people will choose it.Customer service is a very important part of the computer industry. As a future employee of the IS/IT industry I know that I will need to call technical support to get help sometimes. Many companies need to improve their technical support and as of right now, this is not happening. I would rather wait on the phone twice as long and talk to an experienced technician who knows what they are talking about then be in the same place after hanging up the pho...
