The Golden Age of Tech Support

"There's nothing that will bond your clients to you like saving their bacon with little or no delay with the good news that the new printer driver (etc.) that will solve their problem is at http://www.whatever.com and that you're downloading it right now."

It's probably safe to say there aren't too many computer resellers out there who haven't benefited from the surge of interest in the Internet over the last few years.

Indeed, the 'Net is widely attributed as the major force that drove the home computer boom during this period (a plethora of first-class entertainment titles and plummeting prices on CPUs, hard drives and RAM didn't hurt, either). Even those consumers that don't yet own a modem probably have a basic idea of the wealth of resources "out there" and are aware that the 'Net can provide a wide array of business, education or entertainment benefits.

But what about Internet shopping? Most analysts agree that the average consumer is not ready - nor likely to be anytime soon - to trust his or her credit card info to the uncertainty of the 'Net.

So, is commerce on the 'Net a non-issue? I don't think so. Although Joe and Josephine Consumer may not be ready to buy hi-tech products via the Internet, there is a distinct and powerful New Consumer trend toward researching purchases in this way. The basic principle works for technical troubleshooting, as well: search Usenet for the product model and see what others are saying about it, and looking for solutions to common problems.

Indeed, a growing number of people are surfing the net to find out the caveats and gotchas of their intended purchase before dropping their bucks on the table.

Leverage the Internet

Here's how you can participate in this strong and potentially profitable trend.

• Get your technicians to use a search engine to search Usenet (and/or the Web) for answers for your clients - preferably while they are on another phone line. There's nothing that will bond your clients to you like saving their bacon with little or no delay with the good news that the new printer driver (etc.) that will solve their problem is at http://www.whatever.com and that you're downloading it right now.
• Reinforce your company's on-line presence with the kind of information that helps your clients make informed purchases. What is the difference between an EX and a more expensive BX motherboard? Why should they pay extra for PC133 DIMMs, and so on? If you can show them this info on your company's Web site (or even a local hard drive copy), you not only demonstrate that you have the answers and the technical expertise to fulfill their needs, but you are, in effect, training them to become more self-sufficient in solving their own problems. After all, every hour your technicians spend in after-sale-support hurts the bottom line.
• A decent search engine can put sales-oriented information at your fingertips, too. Recommended configurations, technical specs and ballpark prices can be called up while you're talking to the customer on another line.
• Another key piece of your on-line presence is the E-mail angle. Encouraging your customers to interact with you via E-mail has several potential benefits: most notably, the dialogue carries its own tracking and response mechanism. The information is easily carried to or from databases, fax-backs, and other data types. Having the ability to fax information directly from your PC only adds to the advantage.

Understand the Intranet

There are many other ways to leverage the Internet experience.

Chances are, you, like many dealers, find that your best customers have a considerable network infrastructure in place, too. These organizations have users who, just like you, have gone through the growing pains of DOS-based networks and are now experiencing the advantages of more mature Windows clients and administration tools.

As well, if we are to believe the statistics, it is clear that many businesses are experimenting with in-house 'intranet' servers and related technologies. The fact that a growing number of companies are starting to discover why they need routers, hubs, proxy servers and other trappings of modern networks is a good reason for your staff to be looking into these areas.

Even if the majority of your customers aren't far into 'the deep end' yet, it is clearly to your benefit to take a leadership role and get acquainted with the tools and techniques that are required to put up an Intranet server. Fortunately, this is remarkably easy these days. With tools Microsoft's freely distributed Personal Web Server or the tools in FrontPage or NT's Internet Information Server, the tools are almost trivially easy to set up and maintain, at least at a basic level.

Naturally, there are plenty of solutions that don't involve these Windows-based tools, too. If your business focus is Macintosh, or databases, or any one of a thousand other niches, there are products you probably already know about that will both prove and complement your expertise.

Is it a waste of time if you are not planning to sell intranet systems or services? Not at all. Your customers want to upgrade and what new upgrade doesn't include a few Internet-related features? If the customer's got a question, who are they going to call?

Everyone's doing it

As well, the 'Net has probably become more commercial than it was in the worst nightmares of the Internet old-timers.

There are very few companies who don't fancy seeing their products or services listed somewhere on the Web - and it is fair to say that relatively few of those that do post their pages on the Web do so in a way that is truly effective. Nevertheless, businesses want to be there, and with all that free software to help them build their own pages, they probably have a home page started already.

Now that cable modems and ADSL are providing Big Bandwidth to the home at affordable prices, these technologies are stealing customers away from phone-line based ISP services. Although 56Kbps modems now retail for as little as $29, it will be interesting to see what will happen to the modem market. Drop me an E-mail and tell me what you think!