Online Resources Can Help You Get Help from a Vendor or a Manufacturer

by Lee Hudspeth
(This article appears in The Naked PC #6.09, May 8, 2003)

** 03. Online Resources Can Help You Get Help from a
       Vendor or a Manufacturer (by Lee Hudspeth)

Contacting a vendor or manufacturer online isn't always easy. 
Over the years I've developed some techniques for painlessly 
finding the quickest path to the technical support or customer 
support desk.

Whether you choose to contact a company for product assistance or 
information by telephone (speaking with a live human being), fax, 
or online (email, Web-based forms, bulletin boards, etc.) is 
partly a matter of personal preference. Sometimes it's a matter 
of practicality, as certain companies may not be easily reachable 
by phone; the right number is too hard to find, is always busy, 
never answers. You'll occasionally find that sending an email 
actually gets you an answer faster than a phone call. When I'm in 
a hurry for information, I use both media: I call the company and 
I send an email. This has the added benefit of providing two 
separate responses because typically--although it's not 
guaranteed to be so--a person answering the phone is not tasked 
with answering email and vice versa. By getting two responses you 
can compare and contrast them and, hopefully, get a better 
response through the combination of the content of the two.

To get a phone number to call or a Web site URL you can start 
with the printed--or CD-based--User's Guide, thumb through it, 
check the back cover, look for a chapter entitled 
"Troubleshooting," or check the index for same. If you are able 
to find a company's street address but no phone number, try 
online white pages:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/609/tr.cgi?lee1

Microsoft provides a database of original equipment 
manufacturers' (OEM) support phone numbers:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/609/tr.cgi?lee2

Once at a firm's Web site (presumably you'll start at the home 
page), if you want to contact someone directly look for a 
"Contact Us" link. Alternately, look for links named like this: 
"About Us" or  "Customer Support" or "Email Us" or "Call Us". For 
product support information look for a "Support" or "Product 
Support" link, and from that point look around for a link named 
something like "Contact Support". If none of the previously 
mentioned links are visible, see if the site has a "Site Map" 
link. You can also look for a Search feature and search on terms 
like "support", "help", or "contact".

If you look along the top portion of a site's home page and don't 
see any of these links, scroll down to the very bottom and look 
there.

If the above tactics don't work, you can try sending email to any 
or all of these generic contact addresses: info@example.com, 
support@example.com, tech@example.com, or webmaster@example.com. 
There are other variants you may discover along the way, these 
are by far the most common.

(c) 2003, Lee Hudspeth
You can reach Lee Hudspeth at:
mailto:LeeHudspeth@TheNakedPC.com

You can reach Lee Hudspeth at:
leehudspeth@TheNakedPC.com

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