Knowing When to Contact Your Reseller for Support

It has always been our policy that customers are required to contact a local SolidWorks Value Added Reseller (VAR) for technical support. However, customers sometimes run into problems that don’t necessarily fall under the ‘support” umbrella, and are unsure about whom to contact–their reseller or SolidWorks? So who should customers contact? My goal is to bring some clarity to this topic and go over some examples.

Often, customers who are unsure about who to contact will call the SolidWorks corporate office in Waltham, MA. When this happens, they’re forwarded to the SolidWorks Customer Center. If you’re not familiar with the Customer Center, think of the team as the liaison between customers, resellers, and SolidWorks technical support. The Customer Center primarily deals with two key topics:

Registration
Order Management

Members of the SolidWorks Customer Center team are located all throughout the world, so no matter where you live or what time you may need to contact them, you‘ll always be able get in touch with a real person. Most team members are located in Waltham, Massachusetts. Others are in places such as:

Woodland Hills, California
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Tokyo, Japan
Shanghai, China

As I mentioned above, the SolidWorks Customer Center does not provide any direct technical support to customers who own a SolidWorks product, including customers who own licenses that are on current subscription. So when would you contact the SolidWorks Customer Center?

The SolidWorks Customer Center is able to assist with the following:

Activation of products
- Manual activation errors
- Activation count exceeded
Basic Installation Support
- How to install and upgrade your software
Customer Portal and My. SolidWorks
- Unable to successfully create an account
- Not able to obtain full access of features
License File Requests
- Network licensing, Enterprise PDM, Conisio, Temporary files
Locating your Reseller’s Contact Information
Product Registration
How to get help with products not covered under the subscription support program
- SolidWorks Student Edition Support
- eDrawings & eDrawings mobile

Activation issues that involve license transfers must be handled by the reseller. If the reseller is unable to resolve the issue, they will contact us directly. If you’re an existing customer and have questions about purchasing additional SolidWorks products, subscription, or renewing subscriptions on current active licenses, you should always contact you’re reseller. Prospective customers interested in learning about SolidWorks will be transferred to an inside sales representative at SolidWorks.

Here’s something that happens to everyone now and then—you misplace your serial number. We place a high value on keeping your information confidential and safe, and while our Customer Center staff can’t give out serial numbers over the phone, they will offer suggestions/instructions on how to find your serial number. If you still can’t find your serial number, the next step is always to contact your reseller, who will guide you through the retrieval process.

SolidWorks offers many free CAD and 2D tools, including eDrawings, Draftsight, SolidWorks Composer Player, and SolidWorks Explorer. Although no phone support is provided, free web and email support is available for each. If you call the SolidWorks Customer Center asking for help with any of these products, the team will do their best to forward you to the best resources. Also, any customer with a current subscription has full access to the Customer Portal, where you can always search the Knowledge Base for answers to any questions you may have.

I hope this has helped shed some light on when you might consider contacting the SolidWorks Customer Center instead of your reseller. If you have any additional questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.