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it, she said that I sounded like I knew a few things about computers, and I identified my company and my position in it. She then asked if she could put me on hold to transfer me to one of their senior techs, and I told her I had no problem with that.

In the computer industry, 'hot transfers', that is a live transfer of a phone call, is seldom allowed. Imagine my surprise when less than 15 seconds later, the senior tech answered the call.

He spoke to me, explaining that he was reading the case notes, but keeping the dialog going so there was no dead air. About a minute later, he told me that I'd already done all of the troubleshooting they'd have normally had me do. Then he asked a telling question.

"Since the last time you accessed the registry, have you done any changes, particularly to the BIOS?" (The BIOS can be thought of as the road map for the computer, letting it know what is there and where it is.)

The moment he said it, I had one of those 'hit yourself in the forehead' moments. The last call the previous day, I'd been into my BIOS settings while helping a user, and rather than canceling changes I'd made, I'd saved them!

I admitted this to him, and he merely chuckled, saying that he'd done the same thing. I went back into my BIOS, telling him exactly what I was doing, and he didn't bother me while I was doing it, though he definitely listened. I switched the settings back to what they were supposed to be, restarted the computer, and lo and behold, I was able to get into the registry without problems.

As so often is the case, it was a case of user error. Yet my contact was pleasant, unassuming, and one of conversing with reasonable and knowledgeable representatives. The senior tech even gave me his personal extension in case I had further problems.

He also gave me a parting compliment, "If more people would just admit to what they did, like you have, it would be so much easier to fix the problems."

My dealings with Gateway support were stellar, that and subsequent times. In technical skill and satisfaction, on a scale of 10, I would have given them very close to it. Best of all, what would have probably taken me an hour to fix on my own, ended up being done in less than 15 minutes, the original estimate of my call wait time. Do I like Gateway support? Oh yes, I do.

Learn more about this author, Rex Trulove.
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