Excellent HP Customer service experience!

[Pat Logsdon]

A few months ago, I bought a refurbished HP folding keyboard on eBay for ~$40. It died yesterday, so I called HP Technical support, made my way through surprisingly few choices in the automated system, and was on hold for maybe 2 minutes before someone came on.

After dealing with Dell's customer support reps, I was expecting the worst, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The rep I talked to knew exactly what he was talking about, and was very familiar with both the Pocket PC operating system and the driver for the keyboard.

After about 5 minutes, he had all of my information, and informed me that my replacement keyboard would be shipping out ASAP, for delivery on Friday or Monday. I was totally blown away by the service I received, and thought I'd share it here. 8)

[dlangton]

I'm assuming this isn't an early April Fools' Joke? :D

[ctmagnus]

I've always had excellent service from HP. Excpet once, when they shipped my replacement unit to the wrong town and some whiny guy named Jason (I'm sure it's just a coincidence ;)) phoned me several times to ask where the unit I was supposed to send back was.

[omikron.sk]

I have ONLY the good experience with HP technical support, too. Another reason for me to by iPaq instead of Asus, Dell, Toshiba or wathever. (And yes, it's difficult to buy any other PPC than iPaq here, in Slovakia :wink: )

[Darius Wey]

In Australia, there have been reports that the HP Call Centre is based in India (because, as they say, the labour is much cheaper there than in Australia - and in the four times I've called them, it's always been an Indian on the phone). So in my conversations with HP Support, all I get is a clueless support technician, who after 30 minutes, cannot answer my question. Secondly, they have absolutely no knowledge of Australian geography and that makes it even more frustrating after they tell you to ship units off to the other side of the country when clearly it could be a lot more simpler. Thirdly, they're not really aware of consumer guarantee policies in stores in Australia where usually if you purchase something from a store within 30 days, you can bring it back to them if there's a problem without having to go through the whole ordeal of FedExing it to another city. When my iPAQ busted in the first three weeks after my purchase last yr, I suggested this to them and all they told me was: "yes, you could try that".

That's why my so-called 'good' experiences with HP support have been nothing but frustrating and pointless. That's why, I usually try to avoid HP support here in Australia.

And no offence was meant to any Indians in this post...I was just saying that I would have expected Aussies on an Australian HP Tech Support line.

[yuit]

So in my conversations with HP Support, all I get is a clueless support technician, who after 30 minutes, cannot answer my question.

and this follows just because they're based in India ?

Secondly, they have absolutely no knowledge of Australian geography

so, in addition to knowing about the units themselves, they have to learn Australian geography ? Whats next ? They have have to speak with a genuine Australian twang ?

and that makes it even more frustrating after they tell you to ship units off to the other side of the country when clearly it could be a lot more simpler.

and you would know the intimate details of HP's servicing centers, what they do, and where they're located ?

Thirdly, they're not really aware of consumer guarantee policies in stores in Australia where usually if you purchase something from a store within 30 days, you can bring it back to them if there's a problem without having to go through the whole ordeal of FedExing it to another city. When my iPAQ busted in the first three weeks after my purchase last yr, I suggested this to them and all they told me was: "yes, you could try that".

and what exactly do you expect when you call the manufacturer's line ? they have no control over where you buy it and the whatever the store may guarentee. If you want to avail yourself of the store guarentees go to the store, and don't call the manufacturer. I'm gonna get the exact same response in the US if I call the manufacturer. The only thing they can do is to tell me to send it back to them to fix. And FedExing packages is pretty standard, so I really don't see a problem with that ?

A long way towards getting good customer service is to be reasonable and polite to the reps....

That's why my so-called 'good' experiences with HP support have been nothing but frustrating and pointless. That's why, I usually try to avoid HP support here in Australia.

And no offence was meant to any Indians in this post...I was just saying that I would have expected Aussies on an Australian HP Tech Support line.

quite shockingly, the iPaqs sold in Australia aren't made in Australis 8O

welcome to the global economy.

[Darius Wey]

HAHAHAHA! :lol:

and this follows just because they're based in India ?

No, just merely coincedental.

so, in addition to knowing about the units themselves, they have to learn Australian geography ? Whats next ? They have have to speak with a genuine Australian twang ?

Funny...apparently there was a news report where they had 'so-called genuine Australian twang lessons and Australian geography lessons' - I'm not kidding either. :D And no...just frustrating when they can't even tell you which state the suburb is in!

and you would know the intimate details of HP's servicing centers, what they do, and where they're located ?

No... :roll:

and what exactly do you expect when you call the manufacturer's line ? they have no control over where you buy it and the whatever the store may guarentee. If you want to avail yourself of the store guarentees go to the store, and don't call the manufacturer. I'm gonna get the exact same response in the US if I call the manufacturer. The only thing they can do is to tell me to send it back to them to fix. And FedExing packages is pretty standard, so I really don't see a problem with that ?

A long way towards getting good customer service is to be reasonable and polite to the reps....


I was polite to the reps! And secondly, when you take it to the store, they still need to contact HP for an authorisation code which HP are always reluctant to give because they hate these store guarantee things! It took the manager of the store (who has experienced problems with HP "help" about 100 times) to start going off at the manager of HP before they gave an authorisation code to the store for them to take in the machine.

quite shockingly, the iPaqs sold in Australia aren't made in Australis

welcome to the global economy.

Yeh i know...I didn't expect them to be. Here we make your cereal, koala and kangaroo soft toys, and genuine aussie stubbie holders. what high tech device do you expect to be made here?

PS. you seemed to take the previous post quite personally...it wasn't meant to be offensive or anything; just thought you'd might like to know.

[yuit]

yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump on you quite like that. It's just that it seems a large percentage of the complaints (about hp, dell, etc.) stem from the fact that the service centers are in India, (which it seems is not so in your case :))

In my experience I've gotten about equally competent (or incompetent) service whether it be from minimum-wage workers locally or outsourced calls, and if you don't receive adequate service the fault absolutely lies in HP and their training procedures.

It seems to me that much of the problem can be avoided if companies didn't go to such extent to hide the true locations and identities of its reps(and making them put on fake accents, which probably makes them even harder to understand), which leaves the customer feeling deceived and hostile.

There is also the fact of different cultural ethos in other countries, where the customer may not always be right :), and I don't believe the companies are doing a good enough job of training its reps to be more accommodating to callers who expect different.

there was also quite an interesting article (on salon, I think) about what actually goes on "behind the scenes" at service centers (this one was in Minnesota, I think). Quite an interesting read, I'll see if I can dig up a link.