Best Buy buys into tech support 2.0

Those who prefer getting help from peers over negotiating the sometimes headache-inducing labyrinth of traditional tech support will have an additional online outlet come Tuesday. FixYa, a user-generated Web site for product care support, is set to announce a co-branded effort that brings Best Buy customers and the Geek Squad together to swap real-world solutions to common technical problems. Think social networking meets tech support.

Customers wanting to perform their own fixes (or trying to dig others out of trouble) can go to the Best Buy Web site and access http://geeksquad.fixya.com from the "Customer Service" tab. They can search by product, SKU, manufacturer, or product category, or post a new query and receive community troubleshooting. Solutions are free, and visitors to the site do not have to be Best Buy or Geek Squad customers.

If visitors still need "professional assistance" after querying their peers, they have access to the 17,000 Geek Squad technicians populating the site with tips and support. FixYa's community currently has more than 30,000 contributors; the Geek Squad gang will help expand that base through their own contributions.

[Jens_Buch]

The idea behind fixya is very good and potentially very powerful. The problem with consumer IT/Electronics support is that consumers don't always know what information to provide in order for the "specialist" to help. Furthermore, it is not sure that the consumer will follow the "expert's" instructions correctly (no heard feeling please to the consumers who read this). As a result, you will need to ping-pong back and forth on many occasions in order to come to a conclusion. This can be timely and success relies not only on the "specialist's" knowledge, but also his ability to explain something he/she does not have in front of them in the way that a consumer can understand it.

At sumox.com, we believe that establishing a remote desktop connection whilst being on the phone to the consumer is more effective. Unfortunately, this is also more expensive for the consumer. This is because response times are significantly shorter (due to the telephone being used) and because it is the expert who performs the work while the consumer can view and control what is being done. As ever so often, it comes down to how much the consumer in question values his/her time. The trend in Europe shows that people prefer to pay for competent services rather than 'fiddle' around.

Thank you for your time.

Jens Buch
www.sumox.com

[Jens_Buch]

The idea behind fixya is very good and potentially very powerful. The problem with consumer IT/Electronics support is that consumers don't always know what information to provide in order for the "specialist" to help. Furthermore, it is not sure that the consumer will follow the "expert's" instructions correctly (no heard feeling please to the consumers who read this). As a result, you will need to ping-pong back and forth on many occasions in order to come to a conclusion. This can be timely and success relies not only on the "specialist's" knowledge, but also his ability to explain something he/she does not have in front of them in the way that a consumer can understand it.

At sumox, we believe that establishing a remote desktop connection whilst being on the phone to the consumer is more effective. Unfortunately, this is also more expensive for the consumer. This is because response times are significantly shorter (due to the telephone being used) and because it is the expert who performs the work while the consumer can view and control what is being done. As ever so often, it comes down to how much the consumer in question values his/her time. The trend in Europe shows that people prefer to pay for competent services rather than 'fiddle' around.

Thank you for your time.

Jens Buch
sumox

[Jens_Buch]

The idea behind fixya is very good and potentially very powerful. The problem with consumer IT/Electronics support is that consumers don't always know what information to provide in order for the "specialist" to help. Furthermore, it is not sure that the consumer will follow the "expert's" instructions correctly (no heard feeling please to the consumers who read this). As a result, you will need to ping-pong back and forth on many occasions in order to come to a conclusion. This can be timely and success relies not only on the "specialist's" knowledge, but also his ability to explain something he/she does not have in front of them in the way that a consumer can understand it.

At sumox.com, we believe that establishing a remote desktop connection whilst being on the phone to the consumer is more effective. Unfortunately, this is also more expensive for the consumer. This is because response times are significantly shorter (due to the telephone being used) and because it is the expert who performs the work while the consumer can view and control what is being done. As ever so often, it comes down to how much the consumer in question values his/her time. The trend in Europe shows that people prefer to pay for competent services rather than 'fiddle' around.

Thank you for your time.

Jens Buch
sumox.com

[Jens_Buch]

I did not mean to post this three times - I got an error every time I submitted...as you can see I gave up the third time :)