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Why Email Is Better Than Phone Support

We provide all technical support via email; we do not use telephone support, and do not make our telephone number available for this reason. We’ve found that the benefits of email support to all parties are so great that we simply cannot justify the waste of time and energy inherent in even the best phone support systems. We’ve come to this conclusion after extensive study and experience with both kinds of support; it is not a decision we made lightly or arbitrarily. We came to it after we noticed that we were handling essentially all our internal technical (and administrative) communications by email, rather than by going down the hall, or by picking up a phone. Email makes more sense for several reasons:

• It's more effective and polite. You are never interrupting someone; they can always answer at a good moment for them, not just when the phone happens to ring. And you never get a busy, or get put on hold, so your own work can flow freely. It's a no-brainer, especially for creative types like programmers and tech writers... who are both our support staff, and our customers.

• The act of describing the problem often leads to realizing what the answer is. This is a method well-known to programmers: describe the coding problem to your cat, and you will usually get the solution. So often, in the course of writing the email, our customers will see that they left out a step, or misunderstood something; they fix the problem themselves. This saves everyone time.

• When we answer a support email, we can include detailed information for the customer to reference. We don't have to depend on the customers’ memory, on auditory transcription, or on possibly inaccurate notes... for all of which we will be blamed later. This reduces frustration and eliminates most of the need for multiple rounds of messages.

• As part of the support email, we ask for a one-page test case showing the problem. That way we can see exactly what coding was used, instead of depending on someone’s recollection of what they thought they put in, or perhaps intended to put in. Preparing the test case itself, which takes less time than one spends on hold with phone support, also can lead to an "Aha!" moment, when the test file works correctly instead of showing a "bug".