Let’s be completely honest here: There are certain areas of life where you just aren’t going to take advantage of customer support and in most areas you never want to have to. Ideally, online backup should fall into that first category. It is meant to be an automatic process that you don’t really have to interact with very much past the initial setup. On the other hand, it’s there for emergencies and in those scenarios all bets are off. Even if it’s only because you’re panicking because your computer just exploded, you may want some help.

Keep in mind that you don’t always need a personal representative of the company to tell you what to do. A lot of online backup providers have very good FAQ sections that are easily searchable by keyword. The video tutorials tend to be more helpful when you’re getting things set up or want to change your options and settings. The new cool thing is customer support on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. The idea is that customer support representatives will monitor these accounts and answer questions but you can also find other users to interact with who may have encountered the same problem you’re having or may have a question that you can answer. Keep in mind however, that even if your company has one of these communities, it won’t be very helpful if it’s inactive. Before you start relying on that for information, check the dates on the last few posts to see how recent they are.

If none of those work, it’s time to move on to getting in touch with an actual person.  A few online backup providers have a phone number to call and a few more offer live chat but the most common way of getting in touch is via email. That means that you can’t be sure what the response time will be. There is no norm, so be sure to check out reviews to find out who’s the best.