What makes great technical support?

• March 22, 2006
• James Skemp
• StrivingLife

For work today, I sent off an email to support for a product that we purchased, FusionReactor (an application for helping analyze/debug ColdFusion).

About an hour later, one of their support members called me up and talked me through the answers to the questions I had raised.  He also went above and beyond what I had asked by digging deeper into what we were looking for, and even went so far as to suggest that we could send on some log files for them to peruse.

Not only this, but he knew the product.  He was using an un-released, future, version, but he could make that connection with the current product, and give me a glimpse of what to expect in the near future.

Now this is great technical support.  He knew the product, digged into more than just what I was asking for, and was willing to go that extra step to make the company he works for useful and informative in the eyes of it's customers.  In fact, it was such a great "breath of fresh air" that I decided to write a couple paragraphs on it (as you're reading it now).

When I connect with tech support, I want to talk with someone who's got a technical understanding of the product, not just someone who reads off of a sheet of steps.

So, anyone else got some great technical support instances?  Or, some rather awful ones?  Did you get a glimpse of how they work with the product that they support?