Re: I concur with the procedure guides.
Having more feeling of control is extremely important as I have found providing off-site IT services for numerous customers. Just the mere act of power-cycling a modem and firewall is often enough to not only reduce the calls but to make the customer feel like they are less dependent upon you.
I have heard in the past "I just didn't want to bother you" or some similar sentiment, but what is really being said is "I don't want to be forced to call you to free me from the shackles of technology every time some 'little' thing goes wrong." Some customers will feel that they are being held hostage, at the mercy of some outside contact with the keys to the kingdom, knowing it is a 80/20 gamble on if you answer right away or they may have to wait 10 or 15 minutes for a return phone call -- when a simple reboot would have been enough to resolve the issue.
Really. Something as simple as "reboot the computer" is not only empowering to the customer or user as having the ability to resolve many issues, it also lessens the frustration of having a critical call to return, or divert from another job, only to find the solution was as simple as rebooting. Now you have one customer or user waiting for you to return to them, and one customer or user who has had to wait for you.
Amazingly, a simple document with these lines is like gold:
"Problem: QuickBooks won't open
Error: QuickBooks cannot find the data file, or similar
Resolution: Check on Q: drive by clicking START then 'Computer.' If Q: drive is not present, restart the computer and try again. If Q: drive is present, please note if a red ' is present on the drive before proceeding, then double-click on the drive. If the Q: drive opens and you can see files, close the window and open QuickBooks, again.
If the error given is different than above, or any given step results in another error, please call xxxxxxxx."
Pictures help, too.
Of course, you will always have a user who just does not want to troubleshoot. Really, that is fine, too, as their job has other things on which to focus, and only a small percentage of those users makes life happier for all involved.
While customers like to know they can depend on you, most do not like being dependent upon you.