The issue with low level tech support people is they lack judgment. Nice people, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re the guy answering tech support inquiries for

The issue with low level tech support people is they lack judgment. Nice people, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re the guy answering tech support inquiries for $10 an hour you probably don’t have great judgment. So if you give tech support people carte blanche access to the engineers they will generally pester those engineers to death. Yes. My employer has a help desk/tech support line, and first-level help desk (the people that answer the phones) have to escalate an issue to second-level support, who can then contact engineering, if necessary. We aren't a huge shop, either (6 engineers, 3 second-level support folks), but this works quite well, and very few calls make it all the way to engineering.