Niles has added chat functionality to their tech support dept. Cool if you just got a quick question or don't want to actually call and talk to someone.

[Link: mycontactual.com]

Do you work for Niles, or is this some kind of fancy spam/scam? Your email indicates no Niles affiliation, and your link mentions nothing about Niles. Very suspicious.

No Niles affiliation, just called in with a programming question and the guy told me they just started doing it this week. It's not even posted to their website yet. I gave him my email address and he sent me the link.

http://www.contactual.com/ Is a call center system.

Looks like niles is using this service to provide chat based tech support.

Thumbs up because i HATE HATE HATE calling tech support.

That's what I was thinking. If I don't have to actually talk to a person, all the better.

The best tech support would be a a message forum where they have active techs responding to questions as they popup. Most of my questions have common answers that i could search for or they could cut/paste into the thread.

What kills me with calling tech support is navigating the voicemail system for anywhere between 1-20 minutes then getting a tech who maybe has an answer. And i know this horse has been beaten to death but India based tech support is maddening. Just build a better FAQ and get rid of the imagined tech support.

If i could post my question in a forum where 10 techs browsed all day the one who had the answer could respond and i wouldn't have to spend an hour getting on the phone with the other 9 who don't know the answer.

The chat feature eliminates phone system hell and lets you talk to a tech quicker but i still prefer message forums. The problem right now is that most manufacturers build a message forum and the users have to play technician and answer each others questions. They should be motivated to move towards the message board scenario so they can stop wasting money on call centers filled with card readers.

Niles used to have one of the best tech support in the industry. It would usually take less than a minute to get through to a tech, and if they were stumped, they would get an engineer over to figure it out right then.

What I hate about most of these online chat support services is that they don't beep or pop up when the person responds. You are stuck having to stare at the screen to wake for a response. if I could multitask while they took their time answering, no problem.

Gramophone (specialty av retailer) has online chat support and I tried it for grins. It was EXCELLENT, and they used it effectively.

Prompt responses and correct responses. They asked for my email address early on "in case we get disconnected" and then followed up after the conversation.

Generally I agree, but there are a few companies out there that still offer great support. I know Speakercraft comes to mind. Everytime you call, you get an actual person answering the phone (usually a woman named Precious) and they transfer you right away. You are typically speaking to a tech in less then a minute. I do like chat support though, and having everything answered in a forum is another great way to get the answers out there for everyone to see.

Hey Goldenrulz, check the dates. Radiotommy is just a spammer bringing up old threads.

Edit: in the time it took to post this, he went from "is a spammer" to "was a spammer".

I know this is an old thread, but Julie -- this is where the second monitor comes in handy. One of my sons works in IT and has two monitors, side by side, in portrait mode. I've got a 16x9 as my main screen to the left of my 4x3. You can always have a site up while you work on the other screen.

I have run 2 monitors for a couple years now, it is the only way to go. Skype in one window and Facebook in the other window... lol. It is great for situations like Julie mentions though.