Best Commercial Technical Support  Sites 

Compared to free support sites, commercial sites promise better service consistency and generally offer a money back if not satisfied guarantee. 

But the promise is not always fulfilled. That's why many such sites have gone out of business in the last couple of years.   Of the 19 sites I reviewed in my survey in 2003,  only seven are still going today.

Of these original seven sites and two newcomers, I found I could only recommend three. The good news is that all three were pretty good. It looks like Darwin's survival of the fittest is having a very beneficial effect in this market sector.

That said I still suggest you try one of the free support services first. Hey, why spend money when you don't have to?

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Highly Recommended Sites

Experts Exchange  Editor's Choice

This is a community of  IT professionals providing a question and answer service on topics like operating systems, programming, networking and web development through to cutting edge development.

The system employed at Expert's Exchange is a little different from most commercial tech support services and reflects the fact that it started out as free collaborative service where users who contributed  answers earned points that then would allow them to pose their own questions.

This system is still in place but has been extended to allow  participation by end-users who lack the technical expertise to contribute answers.

Such users can pay out $9.95 per month or $99.50 per year to use the service.  For this fee you can ask unlimited questions.

I signed up to the monthly service and got almost immediate response to my questions. The quality of the responses was outstanding - the best of any service I tested.

Now updated with a search engine facility for accessing nearly one million past questions the site has can only described as an awesome source of expertise. 

The only caveat is that the service is really for more experienced users. Looking at some of questions asked by average home users,  I sometimes felt the responses were patronizing and dismissive. Not always but often enough to raise doubt about whether such users would fully benefit from the service.

However if you are an experienced user or work in IT, I have no reservations. Experts Exchange offers you the best tech support service currently available.

Ask Dr. Tech 

This is a subscription-based service offering phone and email answers to your PC and Mac tech support problems 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year.  Fees for home users range from a $19 per call basis through to $89 per year for unlimited calls.  There is also a premium $ 229 plan for business users which offers faster response time and some additional bundled benefits such as support for business software. Subscribers get free online resources as well though for experienced users these are probably a bit basic.

In the five years I've been reviewing this site, it's been getting slowly better though in 2006 it went into reverse.  It all boils down to quality of on-line consultants.

Like many commercial services only a specific product range is supported. One of my questions involved a product that wasn't supported. The list of supported products is not all that easy to find on web site so make sure you check it out before signing up. Last time we looked, it was under the heading "Software" in the plan detail description page

I tried out the standard $89 service. Enrolment was easy and within 5 minutes I was able to pose my first, rather basic, question by email.  The response took about 10 minutes, a little slower than advertised but  the answer was spot on.  My subsequent questions were a little more challenging but and this severely tested knowledge of the consultants. I finally got an answer to one question but  the third was never resolved.

In summary, a capable source of simple tech support with the bonus of knowing that your maximum annual outlay, for unlimited support, is $89.  However don't' expect this service to be able to resolve difficult problems.

Tech24 This pay-per-question service is a revamp of the successful ExpertCity site and differs from the latter in that each question you pose now attracts a fee of $29.95 per half hour of support time.

The format runs like this. On the home page you click a button to initiate your session. You then  register to create a login and password. After that you are told that it will cost an initial $29.95 to have your question answered either on-line or by email within 4 hours. They clearly state "we do not guarantee that a resolution can be found for your problem" and more time may be required at an additional charge of $29.95 per half hour. To proceed,  you must then enter your credit card details.

You then enter a brief description of your problem. Immediately the Tech24 site downloads some remote control software so that they can diagnose and solve your problem.

I had some problems downloading the remote control software and this left me in a no-mans-land where nothing was happening even though I had paid my money. The matter was finally resolved by email but it was an inauspicious start. At the very least Tech24 need a better recovery procedure when there are problems with their software download.

That said, it was easy sailing after that.  Consultants quality was good though not as good as those we encountered in last last year's review. However, they asked the right questions and finally came up with the right answers. And as a bonus, they could construct proper English sentences and even spell as well!  Quite a change from some services I've used.

Tech24 claims that all their consultants have at least MCSE certification and 3 years experience. I cannot attest to this claim but I can say that their consultants were up to the task.

I tried both the on-line and email services and I would have to say they were both offered a good service.  I not only got answers to all our test questions we got them promptly. 

The downside to Tech24 is the cost. While $29.95 per half hour is not a lot, your total bill can soon add up to a scary level.  Other services like Dr. Tech with fixed annual fees and unlimited questions would be much cheaper.

However if you have a single difficult problem that you cannot solve, $29.95 may a cheap way to get a solution.

This is a premium quality service. Use it prudently and you will get impressive value for money. Use it too much and you will end up with an impressive bill. 

Recommended Sites

How I Test Sites

In this series I only looked at sites that provide online or email support. Sites offering telephone-only service were excluded.

To evaluate a site I put up my money and subscribed to the service. Where a free trial was offered, I took that option. 

Where possible I put three questions to each of the sites reviewed. Where one or more questions were outside of the products supported by the site, we put the remaining questions.

The three questions involved an easy software question, a tough hardware question and a very curly networking problem. These were the same three questions used in evaluating free support sites.

Sites were rated on the quality of their answers and the speed in providing them.

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