HP Support: Still Sucking..but not as much

Back in 2003 or so, I bought a Compaq laptop. My first purchased new laptop. Not the top of the line, but sufficient for my purposes. I really enjoyed having my computer be so portable. Not that I went far with it, but not having a big ol' desktop consuming a lot of room was really nice.

About 6 months or so into ownership, the CD/DVD drive stopped working. So I dutifully called support to see about getting it fixed. And that began a journey into a hell I won't soon forget.

Now I have done tech support. Hell, I have even run a crew of tech support folks when I was the service manager for a local PC shop. I know, understand and sympathize with the folks who have to do that job. And I am a demanding customer. I have enough technical knowledge that I can be a pain in the ass to someone who has to work through a script. But in my defense, I have to say it is incredibly frustrating to be walked through troubleshooting steps I have already done before calling. And even more frustrating is dealing with people who have no ability, skill or interest in working with me to find a solution that makes everyone happy. In fact, I wouldnt even *use* tech support if I had parts readily available. Then add in the cultural/language barrier of outsourced staff, and it can lead to near irrational behavior on my part. (to be fair, it isnt just a particular outsource country. If I had to deal with someone with a swamp-thick southern accent, it would be just as difficult. Diction people, it's a part of your job!)

So it was 2 weeks of calls trying to get them to just send me a CD drive to swap and determine if it is the motherboard or the drive. I was cockblocked at every turn. It seems that a major part of the job is preventing people like me from working with knowledgeable and skilled staff.

During the whole time I was getting angrier all the time. I simply refused to be without my machine for a full month for a simple R&R. Demanding on my part, yes. And no matter how I offered to pay escalation costs or any other solution, (such as paying to swap for a refurb) I was refused. I began logging all this into a letter to the CEO of HP as well as the head of the Consumer Products division. Eventually I threw my hands up and mailed the letter (after careful editing so I didnt sound like the Unabomber or something) via Snail Mail to both parties.

A couple weeks later I got a call from a representative of HP who offered to send me a refurbed unit one class above my current machine. Kudos to them. I was satisfied and gratified. But still irritated at how much it took to get what I considered proper service.

Then in October 2006, I decided to get a new laptop. The refurb was starting to age ungracefully and randomly BSOD or just shut off. I decided to get a desktop replacement model and so I went for the max screen I could afford: 17". So instead of having a mondo desktop plus a light duty laptop like most folks, I went for one package. I gave HP another chance because they offered a laptop that fit my needs the closest.

Once again, ~6 months into ownership and the machine starts giving me trouble. First I started getting dead pixels. In a week it went from a couple to a dozen (where it seems to have leveled off). Once again I dove into support.

I was told it would be eight weeks by Fry's (where I had an extended contract, but they were willing to take the unit early) and four weeks by HP. *groan*. And once again it was the same cockblocking routine. Any attempt at a mutually agreeable arrangement was refused (expedite pay, refurb swap plus fee, upgrade to different model + pay the difference) So I said to hell with it and began prepping my old laptop to use Ubuntu and transfer my data and set up programs to take the place of my windows machine. Oh and a HUGE sticking point that caused at least an hour of consternation on HP's part: I would be removing the drives before sending the machine in. Boy they didnt like *that*. I was told they couldnt troubleshoot the screen without the drive. Yeah right. First, no way am I sending my personal and professional data off to be sorted through by them ( I was a tech, remember? I know how nosy techs are. And Geek Squad just got busted for it too.) Second, I would send it with a Ubuntu Live CD in the drive which is more than adequate to troubleshoot the screen. I was actually told to backup the data and format. Why the hell should I when it isnt necessary?

Then mid-process, the new hotness laptop went dark. Brick. Dead. No power, nothing. Ah hell. Back on the phone. Back into 2 hours of nonsense with the script-readers. Once more with shock that I wont send my drives in. Now here is where HP is better than before: I did finally get to a "Case Manager" after a couple hour s of brute stubbornness. He was very good and he informed me that it would take no more than a couple weeks to replace the motherboard and screen, sorry no upgrades allowed (drat. I had to ask though). Well hot damn. But the fly int he ointment was that I was leaving for vacation in a week and a half. Silly me, I figured on a month and that a couple weeks of vacay would be a nice way to eat up half that time.

Okay.. So rather than risk having my hotness sit on my doorstep for a week or so while I was gone; I was given a case number and a number + extension to call when I returned. Cool. Sounds good to me.

Intermission: 2 weeks of vacation

The Monday after I returned, I called the number as directed. Phone number. Extension. Press 1 for notebooks. Cheerful computer voices telling me how lucky I was to have an HP product, please hold for the next Case Manager. 5 minutes of hold (with awful music) and I get dropped to the same cheeful voice prompting me to leave a message.

And that is how it would go for a week. Each day I would call and leave my info: Name, Number, Case Number. (and why is it that the hold music seems to be at the same spot in the tape each time I am on hold?) by Thursday I was calling twice. By the end of the week I had left a half dozen messages over the course of some eight calls or so. I was not calling every twenty minutes...once before noon and once again later in the afternoon. By Friday I was downright pissed off.

So come Monday I am once again working the phones. One more time through the phone system routine for the apparently nonexistant Case Manager. Maybe this was some practical joke they played on me? The definition of insanity is:"Doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different result". In order to avoid repeating the same exact action, I started in on the regular support line.

Another suckage with corporate phone systems not entirely exclusive to HP: Voice prompt systems suck, big time. You know what I am talking about - those systems where the happy chipper computer voice tells you to say what you want into the phone. "Say 'Billing' for the billing department". I cant tell if it is a deliberate effort to embarrass the user or to just show off how clever the company is; but no one can possibly encounter one of these systems and avoid feeling like a complete toolbox. Just. Stop. It. Either let me go straight to an operator or let me choose to use key pad entry..but dont make me sit there and yell "Presario" over and over into the phone.

I wont bore you with the details of getting through the queue. The first person I talked to "John" did the usual routine: Tried putting me through the same troubleshooting aerobics. When I finally impressed on him that I already had a case, it threw him right off track. Then he cant find the case number. Finally he kicks me upstairs. It takes less time to write than it did to experience, because half of what he said I couldnt understand. Again, without calling out a particular region; if your customer is a native english speaker and you are not, then you must speak carefully and slowly. Enunciation.

Once upstairs, I was handed over to "Tanya". This is where things went completely sideways. Without getting into the gory details, once I had explained the issue to her, she began lecturing me. She became very condescending and downright rude. When I told her she was not any help and to get me someone who could she lapsed into stubborn silence. I out waited her. After about 30 seconds of silence, she pipes up with "Well? What do your want from me?" Resisting the urge to tell her to go pleasure herself with a lit road flare, I told her I wanted her supervisor. She made it quite clear I would get nothing from her. In order to save my blood pressure, I hung up. Oh and the kicker? During our loving tete-a-tete, "Tanya" tells me my original order was closed. *sigh*

After a couple cool down laps around the room, I tried again.

This time through I talked to "John" and then "Mike".

"John" was pretty good. I still had a hard time understanding him. But he did come up with a new step. It involved pulling the battery out of the machine and holding down the power button for a minute. Now why didnt I see that in the manual? Oh right....there wasnt a manual. (in hindsight I could have done some net research and found this...but I had a bad case of tunnel vision at this point). It didnt work and I couldnt plug in the AC adapter (the final step) because I didnt have it with me. Then he tries to tell me things I just dont believe (making the power button step seem less than plausible) 1) it wouldnt boot anyways without drives in it (I had removed them in preparation for shipping, and I had only lugged the thing with me to work so I could have the serial number handy). Say what? The machine should at least POST (Power On Self Test) without the drives. He didnt know what POST was and insisted that the machine wouldnt boot without the drives. That consumed 20 minutes 2) they could not fix the machine without the drives. I was getting tired of hearing that. 3) He could not send me a shipping box until I put the drives in it. Oi. Vey.

Finally I got "Mike". By now I am tired, frustrated and generally disgusted with the state of technical competency at HP. And I hadnt even bothered to ask about paying for a unit replacement or anything like that. With "Mike" it was largely a rehash of the arguments about needing the drives. He actually told me (again) to just back them up and format them. hey, the damned thing is a brick, remember? His solution? Pay a services to back up the drives. And again, leave my data in a strangers hands? So then I was supposed to just go buy a new blank drive and put it in. Sure it is a solution, but why should I pay for a diagnostic drive when I assume HP has thousands available to it...or is HP in the habit of shipping computers without drives? Finally he agreed to set me up with a Case Manager who was to call me the following day. *sigh* I was having visions of more letters to HP in my head about now.

Thankfully I had a headset at work, so I could continue generating income for my boss while I was dealing with this mess

That night, I pulled out the machine and went through the troubleshooting steps. I removed the battery and the ram. I held down the power button (I was told it discharges the capacitors. I.E. it serves as the missing reset switch). I replaced the ram, battery and drives. I plugged in the AC and by god it powered up! Vaguely embarrassing. But in my defense 1) that should have been one of the first steps told to me and 2) Why would I believe them after being told they dont know what a POST is or that a machine wont even start without drives. I did remove the drives and power it on to prove to myself that yes, indeed, it does POST without the drives. bah.

The following day I waited for the call. About the time it was approaching 3PM, knowing the Case Manager office closes at 5PM mountain time (or so the chipper phone system told me), I was starting to get irritated again. Just then, my cell phone rings. It was the Case Manager "Hey, I was just thinking about you HP guys!"

The phone call with Kevin, a nice Canadian was the polar opposite of my previous day's trials. He was pleasant, understanding, technically competent and above all; interested in solving my problem.

Screen Issue - "How many dead pixels do you think?" "About a dozen. is there a way to get an accurate count?" " No that is good enough for me" Done.

Motherboard Issue - "I'm glad the reset worked. But let's do a burn in test on it anyhow to make sure" Sorted

Time - "the box to you should be there in 48 hours. Once that ships the unit to us, it should be about 6 to 8 business days. with Monday being labor day, let's talk again on the 6th and see where we are at. By the way, here is my full name, phone number and some other contact info"

If this works as planned, this is great and exactly how the first call should have gone. Why put your customers through all the other BS? Think about it for a moment -

The total time I spent on the phone with the other people is about 4 hours. 2.5 this second round and 1.5 the first time (by my estimate). I talked to something on the order of seven people, not including Kevin. So I am figuring that at least a couple hundred bucks of HP's money went solely to preventing me from getting my machine fixed.

The time I spent on the phone with Kevin was 15 minutes. And I wasnt ready to set fire to the HP headquarters when I was done.

This leaves me wondering: Is it even possible for a large company to offer well priced product AND craftsmanship at the same time. Is it mutually exclusive? Looking at companies like Wal-Mart, HP and Microsoft; I am thinking that it is impossible. But on the fli-side I hear a lot fewer complaints about Apple products. Is it because the company is smaller? Well smaller yes but not small by any means. Large companies proclaim that price is all the customer demands. I dont think so. I demand quality, features and craftsmanship in everything from the physical product to the service I get. I guess I am weird or something. But I cant help feeling that there is a place for superior quality, it is just getting swamped by volumes of low price, low quality. And for the "green" folks out there...do you suppose it is good for the environment to produce crap that gets thrown away every six months?

Whatever. One thing is for sure. I wont be buying HP machines again. Hell I wont be buying anything from a major computer manufacturer if I can help it. I had thought that if I bought a solid higher spec laptop, it would serve me for at least 3-4 years before I had to get a new machine. Apparently this is impossible. So instead I will just run this one until it dies completely or becomes utterly useless. I had been considering buying a desktop machine as well, but now that has changed. I am instead going to build my desktop. Then I know what is in there and I can get things repaired in a timely manner without dealing with piss-poor phone support. As for laptops, I think I will just buy older used ones, just powerful enough to keep me in something mobile.

Update:
Hiya Bird! I'm always surprised to discover someone other than a comment spammer or email harvester reading my long winded blather.

As for your comment: Let's wait a few days yet. I have been promised my machine on the 13th (9/13/07). Then I will have a complete comparison to make between the two experiences.

I did call Kevin yesterday (9/06/07) as we agreed. The first time (AM) the voicemailbox was full. The second time I called (afternoon) I left a voicemail. Kevin didnt return my call then.
So I left another message today. I did get a call back this morning at 10:30 AM. Nothing was actually accomplished. Just verification that the delivery date seemed to be accurate and no dire messages from the repair depot. What was accomplished is a reassurance that my message did get through and someone there did care enough to call back if for no other reason than to accomplish that.

Update Part Dux:
I got my machine back today! I am happily tap-tapping on its keyboard at this moment. The new screen is lovely and defect free. Oh how I have missed this clear sharp bright screen. I got it back 3 days earlier than the order page predicted I would. The downside is that my flamejob skin is no longer on the lid. My own fault. They warned me to remove everything. The whole lid is new anyways. So the scratches I put in it are gone. I havent gotten a follow-up call from HP, but then they havent really had a chance to yet.

So, how does it all play out in the end? Am I satisfied? Not entirely. Yes, HP lived up to its end of the deal; but not until I had to go through herds of script-readers to get to a person who understood where I was coming from.

Conclusion
Is HP's support this time around better than before? Oh yes. Far better. But then achieving a 2 when your previous measure was a 1 is a 100% increase, but really only one more notch upwards.

I still had to deal with a tier one support crew that is frustrating, insulting and driven like galley slaves to just get the customer off the phone. Come to think of it, Galley Slaves is an apt description. They are chained to a single repetitive task and are driven only to avoid punishment by a master with a whip. I, the customer, do not matter one whit. And it isnt until I manage to reach the upper deck by brute force and stubborn stupidity that I can speak with someone who has the intelligence, freedom and communication skills to please me as a customer. If the very first human I spoke to had handled the issue like Kevin did, I would be one happy-assed camper. All it took was a 20 minute conversation - what's wrong with it? Did you try such and so? Okay, it according to my information it looks like it will take a week to 2 weeks to get it back to you once we get it. Address, name, serial number. Here is MY contact info. Lets follow up in 5 days when we should have it" And then follow up as promised. Kevin called me back when I did the follow-up. You dont know how good it feels to a customer when a friendly, known voice takes you through the process at a faceless corporation. You feel important. And when promises are kept, that customer becomes giddy because you stand out from all the other shitty corporations on the planet. So to hell with "John" or whatever he is calling him or her self - gimme Kevin and I am happy. (okay yes I would still moan about being without my machine for 2 weeks, but Kevin can talk me off the ledge. "John" doesnt have the skill or a motivation to do so) And you know what? Happy-assed customers pimp your product. Okay suppose you are paying Kevin 50k a year plus bennies and he can only clear 15 or so calls a day. but if even most of those customers hang up in orgasmic afterglow of stand out customer service, they will sell product for you. THis isnt some new revelation either. Nordstrom built an empire on it. Apple 2.0 phoenixed out of the ashes on it.

As an example, just this week a guy I know talked to me about getting a computer. That happens to me all the time. People know me as a computer guy. he didnt need much. Just dorking around on the net and paying bills. He's a dirty hands guy. He lays concrete and builds houses. He doesnt care about specs. He just wants a computer. Now wouldnt it have been grand if I could have told him "Man, you dont need me. Just hit the HP site, order up a middle line home unit and relax" I simply couldnt do that to him. I know that 5 minutes on the phone with "John" and this guy would pull an Elvis on the phone and computer and unload a full clip into both just to put an end to it. So instead I am crafting him a machine out of common components. Sure he wont have anyone to call but me. But with common components, there are hundred of "me" out there. And he wont be dealing with "John" or committing mayhem on appliances.

it is so damned simple, I dont know why companies like HP dont get it. love your customers. Adore them. coddle them. pet them. delight your customers and the stock will take care of itself.
An example of that - many years ago I sold retail software. Yes most of the time I dealt with a lot of ingnorant folks and "whensthehotnessgamegonnabeoutman?!" But this particular time I had a lady come in. Middle aged. Confused. Lost in computer land. She needed an accounting software for her side business. She is looking at this thousand dollar monstrosity. We chatted a few minutes and I got her looking at QuickBooks (brand new back then) I didnt know much about it or accounting. But we spent an hour looking over the manuals. Then I pointed out the return policy. In the end she took a 30 dollar box of QuickBooks. My boss was not the happiest I have seen him. bitching at me about downselling he was. Well the punchline is that two weeks later, her husband shows up "Hi, you helped out my wife and she thought you walked on water. I need 50 copies of Word for Windows and Excel for Windows for my group at Boeing". Suddenly bossman sprung major wood and his face actually smiled for the first time in the two years I had worked for him.

Delight your customers. It pays.