5 Tips For Becoming Your Own Tech Support
Whether you’re trying to recover important spreadsheets at work or finding out how to fix your wifi router at home, everyone needs tech support at one time or another. In fact, most people will need tech support on a daily basis. The most tempting thing to do is to call a professional to seek help, naturally.
However, getting professional tech support can be extremely time-consuming with long queues on the phone. In some cases, tech support can also be expensive if someone has to come to your home or office. The best thing that you can do is to become your own tech support. You’ll be able to troubleshoot your problems right away, saving you time and money. Here’s how you can do that:
5. YouTube Instructions
While the internet does, admittedly, have its problems, there’s a lot of good that the world wide web has done for everyone. One of these things is access to free instructional videos via YouTube. Each day, countless videos are uploaded instructing people how to do almost everything under the sun.
This includes technical support, all the way down to the specific equipment that you’re using. The videos may not be the highest quality, but you’ll learn a lot by going down a tech support rabbit hole.
4. Get Active in Forums
Technical support is a true passion for a lot of people, and thus, there are a lot of online forums dedicated to the field. One of the more popular ones is Reddit, while Tech Support Guy Forums, Tech Support Forum, and Tom’s Guide also lead the way.
You’ll be able to talk with some of the brightest minds in tech support who aren’t looking for a payday to help you, they have a genuine passion for IT and want to help others become masters.
3. Online Courses
While you can take courses for just about anything online these days, one of the first major fields where online classes became popular was tech support. You don’t have to go to a full-fledged four-year university to take tech support courses, as many of the ones offered online are free to the public.
One of the more common types of free courses you’ll find online is coding. Not only can learning coding help land you a job, but it also allows you to run your own website while not needing to enlist the help of professional tech support. From HTML to JavaScript and everything in between, more people are becoming versed in coding each day.
2. Crack the Books
Sometimes the most simple thing you can do is one of the best. There are plenty of online courses you can take to learn tech support, but maybe not being able to get online is the current issue you’re facing. If that’s the case, head down to your local library or bookstore. There are countless books regarding tech support, ranging from beginner level all the way to expert/master’s degree-level difficulties.
You don’t want to just grab the most popular or best-selling tech support book, though. Many of them can become dated rather quickly, so always check to see if the latest edition is available. Books that are specifically targeted toward IT professionals will be your best bet for learning.
1. Tinker When You Can
You can read and get instruction all you want, but you have to put what you’ve learned into practice before it becomes second nature. Like shooting free throws on the basketball court, always be practicing to see where you can improve. This can mean trying to build something from scratch like a website or running virus scans on someone’s computer. Practice makes perfect, and the more that you practice, the better your chances are of becoming your own tech support.
