www.helpme! : More Technologically Confused Are Finding Support on the Web

Over the weekend, millions of eager Christmas gift recipients plugged in new computers and installed new software. And then untold thousands of them got stuck.

The traditional recourse is to call a (hopefully toll-free) phone number, then wait on hold for a technical support specialist to try to trouble-shoot the problem. This year, however, a growing portion of the technologically confused will be turning not to their phones, but to the World Wide Web.

With the number of novices on the rise and software becoming increasingly complex, demand for technical support keeps growing. This year companies will spend $4 billion answering 200 million tech support queries, with a big chunk of calls coming soon after the holidays.

“Because of the proliferation of PCs, there are more and more people who don’t know what they’re doing,” said Emil Kobylacki, director of membership for the Help Desk Institute, which follows trends in technical support. “That results in a tech support nightmare.”

Web sites offer a promising solution to that nightmare because they can be updated frequently, are available around the clock, can be accessed by many people at once and are cheaper for the vendor than rooms full of people answering phones. Visitors can read answers to frequently asked questions and use electronic bulletin boards or chat rooms to seek guidance from company specialists and knowledgeable fellow customers.

Of course, getting to the Web in the first place requires a modicum of technical expertise. A computer user must know how to set up a modem and load Web-browsing software, if it wasn’t pre-installed at the factory. For the true neophytes who have trouble maneuvering a mouse or lack the self-confidence to make exploratory clicks around menus, Web-based tech support may still present too high a hurdle.

Still, four out of five companies surveyed by market research firm Dataquest this year said they provide some kind of Web-based tech support. And among them are a handful of firms using the Web in innovative ways to deliver tech support to an audience that so far seems enthusiastic.

One of the most promising offerings comes from CyberMedia, a hot young software company based in Santa Monica. CyberMedia, which went public in October and raised $40 million, made a name for itself with a software package called First Aid that fixes the bugs in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Now it has developed a Web-based service called Oil Change that is designed to make a computer as easy to own as a car.

CyberMedia Chief Executive Unni Warrier estimates that as many as half of all tech support problems can be solved with a “patch,” a piece of software designed to fix a glitch or a bug in a program. Those patches can be mailed out to customers on computer disks, but that can take weeks and typically costs $5. A faster, cheaper way is to download the patch directly from the Internet.

With Oil Change ($39.95 a year), all a customer does is type in his or her name and password and click on the start button. Then the computer connects itself to CyberMedia’s Web site and Oil Change scans all the customer’s software. Oil Change tells the customer whether there are patches available for any of the programs. If there are, the customer can click on a button to accept them and Oil Change completes the installation.

“I hope this is a sign of things to come as far as software programs being able to update themselves,” said customer Jeffrey Notestine, a processed-plastic machine operator in Everett, Pa. “

Investors seem to think the technology has promise as well. CyberMedia’s stock has risen $2.25 to $18.25 since going public at $16 a share.

The firms’ biggest rival is Tuneup.com, a Palo Alto firm that charges $3.95 a month to keep customers’ computers up-to-date. When a customer dials in to https://www.tuneup.com, the company’s computer system checks his or her PC for viruses and fixes them, makes sure space on the hard drive is allocated efficiently and notifies the customer of software updates.

Tuneup.com--which launched in September with $2 million in venture capital funding and signed up 2,000 customers in its first month--also has a 10-member tech support staff that can answer customers’ questions on a variety of hardware and software problems. The company is planning a service that will allow its technicians to fix customers’ computers remotely.

Tuneup.com Chief Executive and co-founder Michael Walter recalls that when he was helping ComputerLand get going in 1980, most of the people buying computers were enthusiasts willing to invest the time and energy necessary to learn how to operate them. Now, he says, with PCs becoming a mass-market product, “people arguably have a greater need for support than any of us early adopters ever did. And at this moment, the level of support available is probably at its lowest ever.”

Still, although Web-based technical support may work for some people, many will still prefer the more time-tested tech support delivery system.

* CALLS FOR HELP: Tech support must combine PC expertise and psychology. A1