The Right Way To Ask For Tech Support Help

When asking a question online it is important to have a good title for your post and include details in the body of your question but also leave out irrelevant information. Be sure to not just asking how to accomplish something, but also state why you need to do it so the question can be answered properly. Also be sure to follow up and state what worked when your problem is solved.


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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me give you some tips on how to ask tech questions online.
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Now from time to time everybody needs to ask for help online. You want to make sure that you asked your questions properly if you want to get a good answer quickly. So first let's start with the title. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make. People will just put one word like problem or help or a phrase like can anybody help me. The problem with these is you're not giving any clue at all to what the problem is. Somebody who wants to help who's looking at the list of messages could be an expert on the exact thing you're having a problem with but if all they see is a word like help or problem they're not going to know to look at the question and potentially help you. State what the problem is! Summarize the problem in one quick little sentence. Try to envision the person that could see this title and then decide, oh I know the answer to that. I can help you. Is the title going to attract them to go and read more? Mention the app you're using. Mention what's happening and what you're trying to do. Keep it brief but make sure you're got the details in there to get the right person to answer your question.
After the title usually you can go into more detail. It's important to provide many details. You want to explain what it is that you're trying to do. Don't just state the problem. You want to also mention what you already tried. For instance, if you're saying how do I export something from Pages to a pdf and you've already tried using File, Export you've got to say that. Otherwise the person helping you is just going to tell you to do what you've already done. So it will save a lot of time if you explain what you've already done and why it's not working for you. Maybe the error message you're getting or the result that's happening is not what you expect.
Of course you want to include details about your system. You want to talk about which Mac model you've got. Like is it a MacBook Pro, is it an iMac. What year is it. Look in the Apple Menu, About This Mac and it will show you the model name and year. Include that. Also include the operating system version. Also the version of the App you're using. For instance if the question pertains to using iMovie, which version of iMovie do you have.
Now one of the most useful things that people usually do not include is the Why. Explaining why you're trying to do something. Often people see a problem and they perceive that they need to take a certain action to fix the problem. So instead of even talking about the problem they just ask, how can I do this action. How can I accomplish this. Which leads to an answer but it's not the right answer. The right answer is dependent upon the original problem. This is called the X Y Problem. If you want you could read more about it right here. It's just very important to state your goals. What it is you're trying to do and why. What it is you're trying to fix and why. Don't assume that the action that you decided you need to take is the correct one. Very often it's not.
Okay, so now let me take a step back and talk about how important it is to Search for an answer first. There are two places you want to search. First, of course, is wherever it is you're going to ask the question. If you're doing it in the Apple Discussion Site you can search there to see if somebody else has asked that question before. Then if you find it, not only may you find the answer, but you may find days or weeks worth of discussion about the problem. Also, you want to search the web in general. Do a regular search on Goggle or your favorite search engine for that problem. Type the Search Query as a question. Maybe the same exact thing you would normally include as a title for your post. If you don't come up with a good answer the first time try it at least three times. You need to try different terminology, different phrasing. It's unlikely you're the first person to come up with this problem and the first person to ask it online.
A lot of times when a person like me gets a question we're faced with a wall of text. A ton of stuff and we have to read through it all to find out what's the actual question that the person is asking. It's best to get right to the point. Include all the relevant details. When you're done writing it go over it a few times and get rid of anything that's really not necessary like these examples here. If you spend three minutes asking questions consider that the person answering it is probably going to spend a lot more time on it. So the least you could do is after three minutes writing the question take another three or ten minutes to review your questions making it a little bit better and including more details and taking out things that aren't necessary.
Okay, so some more tips. Every site and every forum has certain rules. Makes sure you review those before you asked questions there. Make sure you're asking an appropriate question and include all the details that that site or source wants. Also make sure you're asking the right place. For instance at MacMost I still get a lot of people asking me questions directly by email or using the business contact form at MacMost. I have a specific place where I want people to ask me questions. So look around and make sure you're asking in the right place. Also, if a forum has multiple spaces for different categories like Apple Discussions has a different page for iMovie than it does for Pages than it does for Numbers than it does for general macOS questions. Make sure you ask in the proper place for the topic you're asking about.
Of course it goes without saying to be polite. Most people are when they're asking questions but sometimes that falls apart when there's a back and forth trying to get to the bottom of the problem. Remember, unless you're talking to Apple Support directly the person trying to help you is just another user like yourself who's being generous with their time and trying to help you.
When you ask a question make sure you check back frequently especially right after asking. Bookmark that page and return to it first every hour or so and continue to do so for days until the problem is resolved. It's very annoying to ask a question and then respond with more questions to help clarify the issue and then not hear back from that person for awhile or perhaps forever.
Finally, make sure you followup with the solution. Respond with comments saying, That worked thank you. Or if you find a solution yourself searching elsewhere after asking the question make sure you go back to where you asked that question and say, I figured it out, here's a solution. Because other people may try to help and you'll be wasting their time if you already found a solution and you just never went back to say that. Also, in most cases that's going to show up in searches that other people do later on. So if you find the solution or one of the things that somebody suggested is a solution make sure to indicate that and bring closure to the entire thing. Probably the only thing more annoying than not actually saying at the end what helped you is saying something like, I figured it out, never mind. You see this a lot! Then usually that's followed, maybe days, weeks, or months later by somebody saying, what did you figure out. What was the solution. I have the same problem.
Hope these tips help you the next time you need to ask a question online. Thanks for watching.
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