Internet Support Solutions | Internet Marketing Resources

Internet Support Solutions When Making Internet Purchases

Written by Gail on 30 June 2009

Where do you go for Internet support solutions when your Internet purchase goes wrong? I remember my first purchase on the Internet – I approved the payment and then nothing happened. Now what? Where’s my digital product?

Well – that’s over five years ago and the Internet has progressed far since then with much more helpful information being provided to guide you through a purchase. In fact, most reliable sellers now provide step-by-step instructions through the purchase, even what to do when your payment has been processed.

The Order Process

Here’s the general order process:

- If you are purchasing hard products, you will probably be using a shopping cart. This holds your products just like a shopping cart at the market. As soon as you’re finished shopping, you go to Check Out to enter and process the payment.

- If you are purchasing a digital product, you click on a Buy Button somewhere on the sales page. The Buy Button will take you to an order page to obtain customer information and the form of payment.

- Once the form of payment has been entered, you are asked to supply the required information, such as credit card number or PayPal log in.

- After you have provided the payment details, the payment is processed and you should be given instructions on what to do next. This may include 1) Click Here to Return to Merchant to obtain your download, 2) Click Here to receive your download – this is the actual link to your product to save on your computer, 3) Look for an eMail from – this directs you to an eMail that is sent to the eMail address you provided. This eMail will contain information about your order, including instructions.

When you make a digital purchase, you are added to the merchant’s customer
list. To do this, the merchant must send you an eMail asking for your permission to add you to their customer list. This eMail requires your confirmation and should tell you to click on a link that has been provided in the eMail. This is called a double opt in and is required to satisfy the CAN-SPAM Act. Once you give your permission by using the activation link, the merchant can send you other offers via eMail. These follow-up eMails are not SPAM – you have given your permission by using the authorization link. This is referred to as permission based marketing.

What to do When the System Hiccups

When you’re using the Internet, you’re constantly being passed through different systems that are connected together through routers. That means you could lose a connection at any point in the order process.

Don’t Panic!!

Reputable websites have contact information on their site for you to use for questions and issues. There are many different ways they can provide customer support and include:

- Phone
- Online Chat
- Help Desk Support
- eMail Address

Any of these methods will work, the only issue is how responsive are they and how fast do you need assistance? If you are contacting your web hosting
company because your site is down, then you need immediate help. Most hosting companies will have an online chat during regular business hours. This allows you to get assistance now in lieu of waiting for someone to respond to an eMail or Help Desk Support ticket. Look for an option to get a hard copy of the chat in case you need to reference it later.

I really like using Help Desk Support because they usually have a Knowledge
Base of self-help articles that may resolve my issue without opening a ticket.
If you can’t resolve your issue, then open a ticket.

About Help Desk Systems

When you open a ticket with a computer help desk, you will have to wait for
your issue to be addressed. This means there may be a lot of tickets ahead of you if it’s a busy merchant. Expect to wait anywhere from 2 – 16 hours for a response. This means you need to check your eMail to see of a response has been sent. Look to see if the ticket resolution time has been provided on the computer help desk. This should tell you what hours they work and if they are closed over the weekend.

Internet support solutions will vary from merchant to merchant. You just need to know where to look to find assistance. You’ll usually find this information on the merchant site as “Contact Us,” “Customer Support,” or something similar. Just follow their instructions and you should have no problem getting your issue(s) resolved.

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