One highly overlooked characteristic of companies today is their technical support. While some companies provide more than adequate support, others fall behind in this category, and still others downright suck at it. But how can we tell how good a company's technical support is? Now that isn't easy.

The absolute best way to check out the technical support of a company is from interaction with others. Be it a chat room, message board, user group meeting, or other method, you can't beat this. But, this method requires many people's input, for the simple reason of more is better. Some people will have good experiences, and others bad, but you must get a good sample of responses. {Indications of good support: Raving reviews from many users, Not many complaints, Most problems solved}

Another way you could check a company out is by calling them with a mock problem. This is not always viable though. Some companies charge you per call, or make you call a long distance number. If these don't apply, you can call at your leisure, just don't blame me if you get someone riled up at you for a fake call. {Indications of good support: Courteous staff, Little or no hold time, Staff has on hand information}

If these two practices don't fit your fancy, you will have to turn directly to the online world. Visit the companies web site, e-mail the tech support staff, search through their FAQs, knowledge base, etc to learn more about their tech support. But remember, their online presence doesn't necessarily solidify what their real world performance will be. {Indications of good support: A wealth of information, Easily searchable, Problems solved with various techniques, Contact information provided}

In keeping with the online world, take these two sites for example: Apple's Tech Info Library and DiamondMM's support page. A quick run through of these sites will show you that Apple's online tech support is definitely better. They provide much more information, a better way of finding it, more direct answers to questions, everything you need in a online support page.

But, that doesn't transfer over to the real world. When I called Apple's tech support, I sat on hold forever. After I finally got through, it took a lot of explaining just to get the person on the other end to understand my problem (just a simple PRAM battery replacement). Plus, instead of quickly looking up a place where I could buy a new battery from, he gave me another number to call. I don't see that as good support. Diamond, on the other hand, kept me on hold for all of 15 seconds. The person on the other end promptly took down all the information he needed, and let me explain the problem. After hearing it, he set up a modem replacement very quickly, had an estimated time for it's arrival, and all the information at hand. Who won in the real world? Diamond.

That leaves one last area of technical support, which is really in need of improvement. To date, I have not found one company that had exceptional e-mail support. Not only does it take forever to get them to reply (if they ever do), but usually they send generic information that couldn't help a monkey find a banana. Once companies get up to speed on the 'communication of the future,' we will see a new, much improved, technical support age emerge. {Indications of good support: Quick turn around time, Tracking number for your e-mail, Only one e-mail needed for a response, No automatically generated answers}

With this bit of information, you should now be able to check which companies have good, bad, or nearly nonexistent technical support. That piece of knowledge will definitely come to play the next time you think about buying a new product from a company. It just may be the determining factor on whether or not you will spend your hard earned money on the latest gizmo.

Addendum: For a lighter side of tech support, take a couple of minutes (Warning: a couple minutes may turn into a couple hours) and read the hilarious technical support calls at TechTales. You may end up laughing so hard, you could fall off you chair. Please take the proper precautions.

Online Technical Support Resources:
• MacFixIt and MacFixIt Forums
• Apple's Tech Info Library
• Accelerate Your Mac
• Low End Mac
• Complete Conflict Condendum