Getting the Most from Technical Support
 

We spend a lot of time answering technical support questions around here, and I've noticed some clear trends in types of calls we receive. We do everything we can to help anybody who calls, but we are able to help some people much faster and easier than others. Why? It all boils down to the quality of information we receive from the Caller. At the risk of over-generalizing, I'd say that most callers fall into one of two categories: prepared and unprepared. Prepared callers typically give us a lot of useful information when they call. They realize that they must be our eyes and ears onsite, so they give us every piece of information they think might help us diagnose and solve their problem. Unprepared callers, on the other hand, give us very little to go on. In most cases they haven't even done a cursory examination of the problem to determine if they should be calling us in the first place. Almost half the calls we receive are for problems that aren't even related to Prevail. Even the problems that are related directly to Prevail take much longer to solve when the people reporting them haven't bothered to gather the information necessary to help us find and correct them. Let's look at the not-so-subtle differences between a prepared caller and an unprepared caller reporting the exact same problem:

Prepared Caller: Hi, this is John Doe of XYZ law firm in Seattle, Washington. We're running Prevail 3.9 with WordPerfect 8.0 on a Novell 4.11 Server, and I've got one machine here that gets a "class not registered" error whenever I try to merge a document. All the other users can merge just fine. I think it has something to do with my machine itself, because if I move to a different machine, I don't get the error.

Technician: It sounds like Corel WordPerfect has lost its registration as an OLE object on that computer. It's a fairly common problem with WordPerfect. Fortunately, Corel knows that and they included a program to fix it. Look in the C:\COREL\SUITE8\PROGRAMS directory for a program file called PFREG.EXE. Run that program by double-clicking on it and click on the REGISTER button. It should fix the problem. If you get this problem repeatedly, you should uninstall and then reinstall WordPerfect on this machine.

Notice that the caller provided the technician with accurate, specific information about the problem, thus enabling an immediate diagnosis and solution to the problem. The caller gave the technician a few important clues right up front that allowed the technician to bypass a lot of question-and-answer time and get right to the heart of the problem. The caller was on his way in about 2 minutes with a definite solution to his problem and everybody was happy.

Now, here's what happens when an unprepared caller talks to a PTI Technician to report the same problem:

Okay, we are not really that harsh, but sometimes we wish we could be. Technical support calls that go this route generally involve a 20-minute game of cat and mouse before we even get an accurate description of what the problem is, let alone fix it. We still eventually get to a solution, but it takes ten times as long and it's fairly aggravating for all parties involved.

We don't expect everyone to be a computer expert, but we certainly appreciate it when people take the time to gather a little bit of information before calling us. The more information we have to work with, the faster we can diagnose and fix your problem. To save time, you should ask yourself and find answers to a few fundamental questions before you call. Here's a good starting point:

1. Does this problem have anything to do with Prevail?
   Not that we don't like talking to you, but If you can't figure out how to change the return address font on your envelopes in Microsoft Word, it's not our problem. It's Microsoft's problem. You probably got a book with Microsoft Word. Take it out and read it. If you don't feel like reading, they have tech support—use it. Ditto for Corel WordPerfect, Symantec pcAnywhere and Novell Groupwise. It's important to figure out exactly what program you're having a problem with. If your printer is pulling letterhead from the wrong bin in WordPerfect, we're not the guys to call. There's always a reason for weird things that happen in your word processor, but it never has anything to do with Prevail.
    

2. Is your machine logged into the network?
   Prevail will tell you if you try to run it without being actually connected to the network, but some people insist on calling us anyway. If Prevail says "Could not find network Prevail directory," it's not kidding. That error means exactly what it says. Your computer has lost its network connection (something which happens frequently in Windows '95, and occasionally in Windows '98). Reboot your computer, log back in and you'll probably be fine.
    

3. Is this problem isolated to you, or does everyone in your office have the same problem?
   This is an important factor to consider, because it tells us if we're dealing with a simple configuration problem on one machine, or a potential data problem on the whole network. If we know it's just on one machine, we can rule out a whole line of testing on the network and get to the real solution on the problem workstation much faster.
    

4. What systems are you running?
   When you call for tech support, we're going to want to know about your machines, your network, your word processor and your Prevail version. If you can tell us right off the bat that you're running Windows NT 4.0 with Word '97 and Prevail 3.9.0.32, you'll save us a lot of digging around and a time-consuming game of 20 questions. Again, we'll be able to solve your problem much faster if we know what you do and don't have. Clicking on the Help menu item of just about any Windows program, and then clicking on About will tell you what version you're running. This goes for Prevail, Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect.

5. Has anything changed recently?
   Every now and then someone will let us spin our wheels for several hours solving a mysterious problem which suddenly popped up on a Monday morning without bothering to tell us that their computer guys were in over the weekend replacing all their computers and upgrading their server. These are things we need to know up front. If we know what's been changed, then we know where to look to fix things. If we aren't told about things that have changed recently, our diagnostic procedures have to start from square one and take much, much longer. Have you recently upgraded Prevail from our web site? Have you recently changed your word processor? Have you recently installed any other software? These are all things which can affect how we go about solving your problem and how long it takes us to do it.