Getting tech support as private individual

[Zeyneb]

Hi there,

Today I sent an email to Vishay technical support to get some more info on what is in their datasheet.
I honestly told them I'm a private individual. You know, not much revenue prospect from my side. And this always worries me if they are willing to spend any time on this.

How do you experience technical support from major component manufacturers for you being a private individual? Also some companies also have forums to benefit other customers.

In talking about:
TI, Analog Devices, Maxim, Vishay, TE/AMP, NXP, ON semi, Taiyo Yuden, etcetera.

Or you pretend being from some unknown startup company. Something I don't feel comfortable with.

[ataradov]

There is no point in pretending to be bigger than you are. There are typically two ways to get support:
1. General support channel. This will get you to some L1 support team, and at that level everyone is basically equal.
2. Though an FAE. If you are an actual company/startup with some verified revenue potential, then you are likely will have an FAE that can answer questions in a more direct way or submit L2 tickets, which have a better chance to be answered.

So just going though L1 case and providing as much technical information about your issue or question in a first request is the best thing to do. If the person looking at the ticket does not have to pull information from you, your chances to get a response become much higher.

[tkamiya]

If you are a big enough company with big enough volume, you'll have an account and a representative who will do some of the support stuff/triage on your behalf.  Lacking that, tech support won't usually treat you any differently.  No, I never pretend to be a big user/company.  I always say I'm a hobbyist looking for information.

I did support for large and medium company for decades.  Calling as a customer, I haven't seen anything differently.  We had customers claiming dollar values and such.  It didn't make any difference as a tech support rep.  A call is a call is a call.