Patrick O'Keefe

For several years, I have supported Hewlett-Packard (HP) and their products. My family’s first computer was an Apple. But, the next one was a Compaq (who later merged with HP) and the one after that was an HP. When I was finally able to buy my first computer as an individual, I purchased an HP. I later bought a Laptop, which was a Compaq (this was after they merged, I believe). My second computer, the one I am on now, is an HP. My second laptop, the one I am typing this on right now, is an HP. We have two printers in the house – they are both HPs.

So, suffice to say, I’ve been a loyal Compaq/HP customer for more than a decade. I’ve been loyal because I’ve enjoyed their products and have been happy with the value and the results. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had crashes – but, those happen and the only thing that has ever really crashed on me is a hard drive.

Let’s go back to early January. I am getting ready to leave on a trip across the country for 2 and 1/2 weeks. I’m using my desktop, everything’s good. All of a sudden, out of no where, I see a blue screen flash and the computer goes off. Well, hey… that’s never happened before, in just over a year of using it. My thought, or my hope, was that I’d reboot and be good. That was not the case. I spent the next day and a half fiddling with it. Booting and rebooting, looking at the BIOS, messing with the boot order, trying system restores and system recoveries. I tried switching out memory. I gave up and just decided to factory restore it. Guess what? No go. I couldn’t do anything. I consulted with friends, went through various suggestions. Nothing.

With the trip only 3-4 days away, I decided I should go ahead and send it to HP for repair. This is where the first part of our story starts – the bad part. I had a hard time communicating with the HP support people. There was literally 6-8 times I called, so this is all a little hazy, but here’s the meat of it. The first lady I spoke with, at first, told me that HP doesn’t repair machines outside of the warranty. That can’t be right, I figured.

After restating my needs, she told me what I could do, which was that I could pay $149 for an extended phone support package and then see if their technician could help me over the phone. Then, if they can’t, I can pay for a hardware warranty for $120 and HP will take care of any hardware issues the machine has for one year. She wasn’t exactly the nicest lady I’d ever spoken with, but I thought there might have been a little bit of a language barrier. But, what she said sounded good. This was before I was done trying what I could on the machine, so I was really gathering info and didn’t place any orders.

The next day, I think, I decided to go ahead and do it, because I wanted to get the machine into HP for them to fix during my trip. I spoke with a nice man, by the name of Melvin. Unfortunately, Melvin had some bad news for me. The lady I had spoken with the night before left out a key detail: the hardware warrenty wouldn’t go into effect for 30 days. So, I’d have to buy it, wait 30 days and then send my desktop in. That won’t work. So, I explained that I wanted HP to repair it and how much would that cost me. I was fine with the amount (which ended up being $319.19).

HP had to send a box to me, to put the computer in, to send back to them. This was fine, except that I wanted to send it before I went. He told me it would come the day I needed it to… or the day after, when I would already be gone. I told him that I needed it to come on the day before I left, so that I would be there. He told me it would and made a special note on the order, he said. Good, we’re golden.

One problem. I get the order and the shipping info tells me that the box will be there the second day – when I would already be gone. Alright, I think, it could be wrong as Melvin assured me it would get here when I needed it to. So, I called in to HP and I spoke with a gentleman. I really, really wish I would have remembered his name, and here’s why.

I explain to him the situation. How I had been assured it would arrive when I needed it. He didn’t seem to understand what I wanted and he said some things that didn’t make sense. Once again, I suspect there may have been a language barrier here. So, I explained again, very patiently. He goes away for a minute or two and then he comes back and says “something something $300.” I didn’t hear him, so I just said that, I’m sorry, but I didn’t understand. He then YELLS at me “YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT A NEW TOWER FOR $300, PATRICK.” Totally yells at me. And that’s the answer?

I bought my computer at the end of November 2007. I had a coupon for 30% off, so I maxed it out. The machine I purchased, on November 27, 2007, was top of the line in every way. It was the best that HP offered. In 13 months, there is no way that a similar machine is $300. Absolutely no way. I am not buying some cheap, $300 computer. I am a power user, I have 3 monitors, I am on the computer half of my day, if not more. I want my high powered machine repaired and I’m willing to pay for it.

I didn’t say anything. I decided, at that point, that I didn’t want to talk with this fellow, any further. I politely told him that I would like to speak with a superior. Again, he goes away. He comes back. And he tells me no. I wish I was kidding. He tells me that his supervisor can’t help me and that I should contact FedEx. Wow. This actually threw me for a little bit of a loop.

“At this point, I am looking to complain,” I told him. “So, if I could get a superior, that would be great.” Really, I had forgotten about the box, I just wanted to let someone know about this guy yelling at people and then refusing to transfer me to a supervisor. I didn’t hear another word. Just click. He hung up on me!

Wow. Now, at this stage, I had been on the phone with HP for hours already. I was thoroughly deflated. I needed my computer fixed, so I was going to go through with it. My box was on the way and I was trying to figure out someone who could come to my home and pack it for me and send it out while I was gone. Did I really want to call them back again to try to get a supervisor? Yes, yes, I did. Because I wanted someone to know about this. As I explained earlier, I’ve been a long time HP supporter and this experience was highly uncharacteristic of what my past experiences were with the company. I wanted someone to know, so that it could be handled and I could get back to liking HP.

So, I decided to call back. What happened next was an unbelievable phone version of musical chairs. I spoke to one lady, I explained that I wanted to talk with a supervisor. She wanted me to explain what happened. I did. She transferred me. Only, I got put back into the main phone system and another regular tech picked up. Same thing – again. I told the person I wanted to talk to a supervisor and they wanted to know why. I explained and they transferred me. Understand this is like 7-10 minutes a person, so we’re looking at 20 minutes now. I got the next guy and I told him I wanted to talk to a supervisor and he asked me to explain.

I told him that I had already explained to two techs and I had just been passed back to the main support people – he was the third that I spoke with. He was a nice guy, though, and he promised it wouldn’t happen again. So, I explained once again. And he made sure I made it to a supervisor. Thank goodness. It took me literally 30-35 minutes, but I finally, finally spoke with a nice lady and I explained it to her once more.

She was surprised, she was compassionate and very, very apologetic for the problem. She said that she would look into it and that it would be addressed. She confirmed that there was nothing that could be done about the box. I asked her if there was any way that I could pack it myself, as I had all the originally packaging. She went away to look into it, but came back and confirmed I couldn’t, again, apologetic. I was resigned to this fact, so it was no big deal by this time. I appreciated the empathy and that I had, perhaps, left feedback with someone who cared. I just wanted to share my poor HP experience because I like HP. So, the situation was closed for me.

The next day, I was surprised to receive a call and e-mail from Marina, an HP Case Manager. She was calling about my computer and asked me to call her back. Unsure of what it was about, I called back. I didn’t talk with Marina, but Rob. He asked me to explain what happened. I said that it was probably documented (at this point, this was the 5th time I’d recounted the story), but I went ahead and explained it all again. He was also compassionate and sorry. Furthermore, he said that, because of the terrible experience, HP wanted to take care of my repair, free of charge. I thought this was a nice gesture. I said it wasn’t necessary, but I definitely would appreciate it. Money’s really tight.

So, we made arrangements and he offered to put it off until I got back from my trip, but by this time, I had a friend of the family coming after we left to pack the beast up. He made special arrangements for the computer to be held and shipped so that it would arrive when I got back. But, he was very nice and I appreciated it. For me, I thought the situation was over the night before and I was satisfied with it – as satisfied as I could be, anyway, given the situation. It was nice that they went a little bit over what I would have expected.

My computer was shipped while I was away and it came back to me right around the time that it was expected. Everything was in order. I went online to check my credit card statement to ensure I had been refunded the amount. I hadn’t. So, I called into case management, rather than to the general support contact. I spoke with Cheryl and, at first she didn’t see it, but after some digging, she found the notation where Rob wrote that the repair would be free. So, she was glad to process that for me and she wanted to make sure the computer worked. I hadn’t had time to set it up and told her so. So, she said she’d call back in 3 days.

She actually called back in 2, but it was fine, as I had already checked through the PC and it was fine (well, except that it wasn’t exactly restored to full factory condition – the RAID array hadn’t been rebuilt and, somehow, the system was cleaned but my Recycle Bin still had my stuff in it? but, those are small issues, really). So, we closed the ticket. Cheryl was very cheerful, kind and helpful.

So, basically, what I am saying is that HP took this situation from a very bad support experience to a good one, one that I won’t remember in a negative light. Before I spoke with that supervisor, I spoke with approximately 9 support techs. Of them, 2 were good – Melvin and the fellow that got me to the supervisor. The rest were poor, hard to understand (or didn’t understand me) and, in some cases, rude. But, once I spoke to that supervisor and I got to the case management people, everyone was great. I appreciate that they cared enough to not just listen, but to follow up with me the next day and offer to take care of the repair. It’s helped to preserve my belief in HP.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Business and My Work, General and Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.