I can remember calling technical support in the 1990’s for various computer issues when I was a System Engineer at Needhams Business Machines. The people I talked to were easy to understand because they were in the USA and it was a pleasure speaking with them most of the time.
Nowadays, I’m usually speaking to someone in another country who may be difficult to understand. If it’s a large company, it can be painful being transferred from department to department trying to find the right person to help me. In other instances, they ask for all kinds of information and still can’t help me. A The exception is small, specialized software companies located in the USA. Calling technical support for them is faster to get through and they are easier to understand.
A disturbing trend I’m noticing is computer companies discouraging you to call them. This week I was trying to get help from a OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software company. I needed assistance getting their software to run correctly on a Windows 10 laptop. My client and I searched their website for a telephone number and never found one. All they offered was email support and when I sent them a message, they never responded to my email. My client had to email them and they still haven’t contacted me yet after two days.
As an alternative to phone support, I first try live chats with technical support on their web sites if available. Most of the time this has been beneficial for me for simple questions and sometimes troubleshooting. Some tech support operations offer remote support which can really save you time and grief. This is where they take control of your computer and fix the problem themselves. I use this service for my clients.
As you can see, I avoid calling technical support unless it’s the only way to get help.