How Do You Know If You're Getting Good Tech Support Advice?

With so many Web-based sources of technical support, it's obvious that some are better than others. But how much you pay — or don't pay, in the case of a free service — doesn't always reflect the quality of the advice you get. In fact, you may get better help from a volunteer on a free Web site than you get from a tech support phone line that charges by the minute!

Whether you use a free or a paid service, there are ways to evaluate a tech support provider before you rely on it to fix a problem. Search for comments and complaints about a provider on sites such as Google Groups, which list thousands of public discussion groups collectively known as Usenet. You can also run Web searches on computer-related publications, such as PC World, that review technical support sites. Although no tech support service will get universally good or bad reviews, you can get a sense of what most people think based on the responses you see in these online forums.

Take a look at the online discussion groups that the site hosts. Do they feature plenty of current posts or do they resemble a virtual ghost town? The best support often comes from sites that achieve a "critical mass" of people who visit, both to ask and to answer questions.

If you're considering using a tech support-related Web site, e-mail or post a couple of sample questions and see what kind of response you get. Does it deliver a complete response within the promised time? If not, you may want to seek another source of tech support before you really need it.