SupportSpace Corporate Blog

SupportSpace provides its MILLIONTH hour of service!

You’ve come a long way, SupportSpace baby! ONE MILLION HOURS OF SERVICE!

Yep, we’ve calculated the total amount of time experts that have spent on the SupportSpace platform giving service to customers – and this month we hit our millionth hour. Very, very exciting. Let’s stop and think for a moment what that number really means… Each hour and minute an expert spends giving service on our platform represents real time saved for that customer. Time that would otherwise have been spent dragging the neighbor kid over to “take a look at the computer and see what you can do” or worse, dragging the whole computer into some technician's lap where it could sit gathering dust for weeks before it gets fixed.

Experts deliver services from the SupportSpace service site, as well as from service sites of companies offering services powered by the SupportSpace platform. You can see who some of these companies are, as well as read some great customer feedback on our Testimonials page. To date, the most frequently requested services from the SupportSpace and partner sites have been Spyware and Virus Removal, PC Tune-Up and Printer Help. We are constantly refining, adding and tweaking our services, so we’ll be sure to update you if a different service rises to the top.

Well, here's to a fantastic million hours of delivering superior quality, affordable remote tech services. We look forward to a million more!

Congrats to our Partner, Lavasoft!

 SupportSpace wishes to congratulate its partner, Lavasoft, on the 10th anniversary of the release of its award-winning advanced malware detection application, Ad-Aware! To mark this achievement, Lavasoft has released Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition which is significantly lighter and faster than previous version.

Continuing their tradition of dedication and commitment to their customers, Lavasoft has teamed up with SupportSpace to offer Ad-Aware users a unique support experience. Ad-Aware users needing immediate and live help can purchase a Live Help support session and connect instantly to a certified Ad-Aware Support Expert. The experts are available 24/7 and can assist in a number of ways such as: help using or configuring the software; updating to newer versions; helping remove viruses and spyware; training or troubleshooting and more.

Lavasoft promotes the Live Help support sessions through their Support Center and their newsletter. Experts deliver services to users from the SupportSpace SaaS-based workbench which contains all the tools and knowledge needed to perform the service.

Vendors, such as Lavasoft, chose to partner with SupportSpace in order to offer their customers high quality and consistent live online services that are delivered by a workforce of independent, certified experts. The service is operated as a full turnkey SaaS which can be fully branded for each partner.

SupportSpace Creates Easier Platform for Online Tech Support

As ever, we at SupportSpace have been working hard on the latest updates released this week. We have been listening to the feedback from both customers and experts alike and are now happy to let you know what’s new.

Product Page

Comprehensive product information is now available when you click on the product name you are looking for. For example: if you need help with printers, by clicking on the word ‘Printers’ in the “Get help with” menu, you will find all the information you need on printers. This includes experts in the relevant field and featured services

Solution Pages

You can now see all previous session reports when you click on “View Solution” on any product. This means that you may be able to see cases similar to yours and get some ideas on how to solve the problem. This information can also be accessed from the featured services section and on the expert profile pages. The solutions list may also help you when choosing your expert as you can see how his cases were handled.

Starting a Session

We have improved the flow of the sessions by ensuring that the initial process begins in one swift process. Session initiation and customer sign up can now be actioned from within the page you are currently viewing so no more re-directing.

We have also improved the connection process between expert and customer as well as changing our expert tools. We now work with TeamViewer and feel sure that you will notice the difference on your next session.

Password

Previously, we have asked you to fill out a feedback form so that we can issue you with a new password whenever you have needed. You are now free to access your account and choose the change password option allowing you to decide your own password and to make those changes whenever you feel necessary.

As ever we are always delighted to hear your feedback and hope to hear from you soon at

http://feedback.supportspace.com/Feedback.htm

Running an Online Tech Business from Home

I have just read a great article written by Eric Holmlund all about online businesses and if it’s the right thing for you.

Eric takes an honest approach by saying that although there are hundreds of posts out there telling you how easy it is to run an online business, it is in fact, hard work. He lists in his post a few main points to consider, such as set-up costs, time involved and willingness to commit to marketing.

“The fact is that it takes hard work to build a business, and there are certain abilities that will greatly increase your chances of success.” He continues by saying that in order to run an online tech support business, “You DON’T need to be a computer expert, but you must be comfortable with computers and willing to learn.”

SupportSpace experts benefit from the marketing efforts made by SupportSpace, some of which are listed in this post, while still being able to promote themselves individually, as each one has a designated online store (web page). These can be promoted using the various web 2.0 sites, craigslist and more, like our own Don Brown, who wrote this post about the advantages of working flexible hours from home.

SupportSpace experts are tech-savvy individuals who range from Microsoft MVPs to knowledgeable, self-taught individuals, and tech generalists and specialists in the widest range of products you can imagine.
SupportSpace experts are gurus, computer lovers, authors of technical books, self-taught techies or well-schooled computer science types.

But all SupportSpace experts have a few more things in common.
1. They care about what they do and really enjoy helping others
2. They are knowledgeable about the technologies they support
3. They are passionate about being part of a Support community and realize it is part of their responsibility to help us continually improve our service
4. They care very much about the customers' experience.

If you feel that this applies to you and that you would like to join our extensive community of tech experts, click here to start the certification process and we look forward to seeing you at SupportSpace soon. We think that this article pretty much sums it all up. According to Tom Harnish of “Undress4Success and as the title suggests, “SupportSpace is the Standout Employer for Work at Home Techs”.

SupportSpace Online Tech Support Adds New Features

As ever, here at SupportSpace our focus is on giving the best support on all technical and PC problems and so we are constantly working to improve our service.

Here are some of the latest updates released this week:

Messaging Capabilities (Example)

It is now possible to communicate with our experts through the new SupportSpace messaging service. On the homepage, there is a new option to “leave a message” which can be found under the “connect now” button. This can be used when you see that the expert is busy or offline or if you just want to say something even if they are online but you do not want to run a full session. This system is also useful for experts to follow up with customers and to consult with other experts within our community. You can also leave a message directly from the expert store page and you will be notified when your expert replies both through a message indication on the top right of the page next to your login name and by email.

Session History (Example)

There is a new option available for you to see details of all your previous sessions on SupportSpace. It can be found after logging in under My Account >Session History and the information can be accessed by date, status or type.

Feedback (Example)

Once a session has been completed, you are asked to fill out a feedback form rating various aspects from 1 – 5. On some occasions, it may be useful to have an option of filling in this form at a later date which you can now do through the new “Add Feedback” link on the Session History page. In the section named “Solution Report”, you can also read all about what the expert did and how he solved the issue, meaning you can now refer to previous cases should the same problem recur.

Pre-Booked Sessions

We have introduced a new service which allows customers to return to their original expert as they will appear online only for you. This will be particularly useful if, for example, you are in the middle of a session and need to reboot your computer. Previously, by the time you were back online, your expert may have taken another call and therefore would not have been available to continue the session with you. With this new service, the expert will appear busy to everyone other than you and as soon as you are ready to continue your session, you simply re-connect to resolve your issue.

We are already working on the next round of upgrades and look forward to sharing them with you soon.

The Best Online Tech Support Services

Anyone who keeps up to date with PC Magazine will know that Michael Muchmore has been running a series for the last few weeks with reviews on online technical support services.

According to PC Magazine, SupportSpace stands out by giving customers the chance to read user feedback and see the expert’s past performance rating.

Muchmore goes on to say that there is “a thumbnail picture of each tech which lets you put a face to the name—something you can't do in any other support service I've tested”. He says “at support-specialist clearinghouse SupportSpace, you can find people offering their services for as little as $14.99 for a session that ends only when your difficulty is resolved. That service also shows you who are online and available immediately, so there's no hold time.”

He sums it up by saying “SupportSpace's marketplace approach makes tech support more affordable, and I love having the chance to see some background on the reps and being able to choose, as opposed to just getting stuck with the next cog in the wheel. It also means you can develop a relationship with someone whose skills you value”. All sessions also come with a money back guarantee, no questions asked.

By reading this article, you can also get an idea of Muchmore’s impressions on firedog, FixFlash.com, Geek Squad, HiWired, iYogi, and Support.com. So next time you need online tech support, come visit the professionals at http://www.supportspace.com/ and we’ll be happy to help.