We’ve all been there. You have a problem with your internet, a new dishwasher, or software … Typically, your next step is to go on the service provider’s or manufacturer’s website, read the FAQs, and … find them to be useless. What you really need is to talk to a human, but the supplier knows that it takes money to have qualified support staff, which cuts into their profit. So, you get directed to a series of increasingly worthless chatbots with filters such as:
“Press
1 if you failed to plug in your device
2 if you are calling from outer Mongolia
3 if you have three eyeballs
4 if you just had asparagus for lunch
…
0 if your carpal tunnel is starting to flair up or you have given up all hope of talking to a tech support person
(then we can hang up and call this call a success).”
In rare cases, after waiting on hold for 45 minutes of awful music and messages that “Your call is important to us,” you may be able to finally reach a human—lucky you! However, these days, many tech support people know less about the solution than you do. They just read from a script that has no connection to your problem. So, you end up adding to the list of products/services that you are paying for but can’t use.
Let’s face it, nowadays, tech support/customer service calls usually result in frustration. (There are a few exceptions; for example, Garmin is good.) Many companies just want to take your money and don’t care about service after the sale. “Your call is important to us” is one of the biggest lies of this generation.
I’m proud to say that at Bentley, we’re not like those guys and we back that up with resources to ensure user success.
Where do you start when you want help now? Here is how I would proceed.
- If you are on one of our OpenFlows products, click on the Help or “?” button. We have one of those in every dialog and, usually, you need not go any farther.
But what if your question isn’t addressed in Product Help?
- We have a great set of Wikis that go a lot deeper than the in-product help. Visit our Wiki to find relevant information or type in your question. To find something in our wiki, go here and type your question into:
https://communities.bentley.com/products/hydraulics___hydrology/w/
Most of the articles on Wiki were written by our tech support experts who have likely answered your question at one point or another.
- If you’d like to cast a broader net for a solution, you can go to the Bentley Communities forum.
There is a strong probability that someone on the forum has asked the same question that is on your mind and the answers posted in the forum can come from tech support, other Bentley personnel, or fellow Bentley users.
“But I want to ask a specific question and get a quick answer from a human.”
This is where Bentley really shines. Go to the Bentley Support Portal.
https://bentleysystems.service-now.com/csp
On the Support Portal page, you’ll see the tiles below. Most likely you’ll want to select Technical Support. This page can get you to the right support person if you have a billing or a login issue.
When you select Technical Support, you’ll get a form to provide your personal information, description, language, priority, and product; and you can add attachments. Most of the time, your question will be answered as quickly as it takes to write an answer or point you to a Wiki where the answer resides.
“But I want to talk to somebody.”
Yes, we have phones in offices (and in many different languages). Whether you are in Poland, Portugal, or Pakistan, you are likely to find somebody who speaks your language and knows the various OpenFlows products.
To get in touch with the nearest Bentley support team in your region, go to the Bentley Offices page.
https://www.bentley.com/company/offices/
You may need to go through a menu but unless you are calling at odd hours, someone will answer.
Remember that Bentley is not successful unless you are successful, and we have a large collection of highly qualified people to ensure that.
If you want to contact me (Tom), you can email tom.walski@bentley.com.
