There are dozens of specialized forums, online documentation pages, how to and “mini” how to articles, all-knowing contacts and search engines out there. Why then would a company or an end-user need to pay technical support to a vendor? Customers can do some reading and research a little and know anything about everything.

It’s about time…
Let’s start with time and its value. No matter how acquainted you are with forums and search results, you will never be as fast as a tech support engineer who instantly connects an error message to a solution. Most of the issues users run into are known to them (they’ve seen it many times before or, if it is a critical new incident, a few dozens emails from people in another time zone have already given them details).

...and correctness
You are also guaranteed you get the latest reply for each question you might ask. Forums, third party or maintained by the company, can have the next best reply or they can be old generation already. Moreover, testers and developers who are always the best source of information are within reach. Thus it would be wise to keep the email address and phone number of the technical support department close by. When it comes to installing, configuring and troubleshooting their product, no one can help you faster than those doing these very same actions each day, every day.