How tech support should be done, as demonstrated by HP

[Theodoric]

I had an interesting experience of the superior level of tech support supplied by HP this afternoon.

I phoned them about problems I had in cleaning the print head on my HP 930C and the person I spoke to suggested that I should download the latest XP driver.

To cut a long story short this led to problems with a mysterious error message that could not be resolved. After well over an hour of patient attempts by the HP tech person, he suggested that I try removing the Startup items one at a time via Msconfig and that he would phone back 30 minutes later and see how I was getting on.

Now comes the slightly embarrassing part. I found that the problem seemed to be due to me leaving the HP setup disk in my CD drive.

And now comes the interesting part. Exactly 30 minutes later the chap fom HP phones back as promised and I explained the situation and problem resolved.

Now, when I first connected to ntl broadband I had another mysterious problem. When I phoned ntl tech support, they tried to solve it for 30 minutes then, when this failed, they said, ever so politely, words to the effect that, "Sorry, you're on your own now, sunshine". By a bit more perseverance (and a lot of Googling), I finally managed to solve the problem myself.

So, it seems we have HP tech support, namely we'll carry on trying even if it kills us and if we say we'll phone back, we mean it, and the bog standard, we'll give you half an hour of our time and if we can't solve the problem, clear off, tech support of ntl.

[andygrif]

I had a good one today:

Bad problems with intermittent browsing, not connecting to hosts etc.

Phoned up to see if there was anything I could do, and was told it was my PC that was the problem. It's the firewall he said. But I disabled the firewall I said. Well even when you disable them they are still working he said.

I persevered and eventually got to speak to the TS with the brain cell. Try this he said...change the proxy setting.

Did it...works great now! Mad world.

[Macready]

it is funny the stuff that some TS people come out with, my PC specs were asked before. basically looking for stuff to blame on me.

One time my UBR was oversubscribed, I knew it as my friend working at NTL told me, and said to report it as a fault, I rang up NTL to make said report, was told that problems lie at my end and given link to Robin Walkers Pages.

That was amusing.

[Ben]

Well of course its a problem your end! How can it ever be a problem at NTL's end! There network is 100% full proof :p

[Delta Whiskey]

Originally posted by Gandalf
Well of course its a problem your end! How can it ever be a problem at NTL's end! There network is 100% full proof :p

Don't you mean their network is 100% Full.

[Helpy Person]

Just wanted to add a small point if I may ....

One of the biggest problems we have at Tech Support is that we are told what we can and cannot do by management

We are basically told that as long as the customer can collect e-mail and browse this is where our support ends and any other problems are basically down to the customer to sort out

Nothing would please me more than to spend a little bit of extra time on the phone helping out a customer and going that extra mile which was drummed into our heads in training but in reality it is frowned upon

Many a time I have been on a call with a customer and been looking at microsofts knowledge base to try and resolve an issue and I have been told off for spending too long on the call and giving out un-necasary support as the customer can browse and check mail

I know we have some bad apples who will try and fob the customer off at any given opportunity but please spare a thought for the good techies amongst who face red tape and not being allowed to provide the best support we feel we can

[Xaccers]

We use HP as our microsoft "premier" support
Pile of cack if you ask me.
The don't phone back.
We had a problem with a client's solution going down.
Service from HP was appauling.
Because it was the evening, as things got later, fewer people accessed the client's solution and so it wasn't going down as often, so the HP guy tried to pressure us into dropping the priority of the call!
They've got one good guy there and if we don't get him we're basically on our own.

Also when I phoned HP a few years back to ask if they could point me in the direction of some win98 drivers so I could add them to the printers on our NT4 print server (so win98 clients could automatically install the printer).
I didnt' want the setup crap just the drivers, but the people at their support desk (apart from not speaking very good english) just didn't have a clue.

[andygrif]

Originally posted by Helpy Person

Nothing would please me more than to spend a little bit of extra time on the phone helping out a customer and going that extra mile which was drummed into our heads in training but in reality it is frowned upon

<snip>

I know we have some bad apples who will try and fob the customer off at any given opportunity but please spare a thought for the good techies amongst who face red tape and not being allowed to provide the best support we feel we can

It's always good to hear from CS or TS reps with a conscience, and it's good to hear from you too.

However it does seem that almost every time I call CMTS I get one of the bad apples you talk about. Maybe I'm unlucky, maybe there are lot of them - but it's good to know that there are some good ones, and you can sleep well at night knowing you have done your best.

[albone]

reading this reminds me of another HP helpline! My sister had a printer bought for her and the person very kindly put the printer on for her but kept the disks! some time later we needed those disks to reintroduce to another computer and her not having any access to the net made for an awkward time. Went down to the friendly PC world, they were as helpful as mud! So we rang TS at HP only to be told you'l have to buy the disks at (wait for it) £30 a time! well my sister wasn't none too happy and in the end we got over it by doing a swop with an old printer of mine! So the moral of the story is that there are some who will go the extra mile and be very helpful whilst others let the side down by their attitude.

[Theodoric]

Originally posted by Helpy Person
Just wanted to add a small point if I may ....

One of the biggest problems we have at Tech Support is that we are told what we can and cannot do by management

We are basically told that as long as the customer can collect e-mail and browse this is where our support ends and any other problems are basically down to the customer to sort out

Nothing would please me more than to spend a little bit of extra time on the phone helping out a customer and going that extra mile which was drummed into our heads in training but in reality it is frowned upon

Many a time I have been on a call with a customer and been looking at microsofts knowledge base to try and resolve an issue and I have been told off for spending too long on the call and giving out un-necasary support as the customer can browse and check mail

I know we have some bad apples who will try and fob the customer off at any given opportunity but please spare a thought for the good techies amongst who face red tape and not being allowed to provide the best support we feel we can

Fair enough. It surprises me not in the least that management puts pressure on the staff.

In my particular case, both problems were caused by by the companies and not me (honest, it's the truth; well, almost). To be specific:

1) When I installed ntl broadband, my Home Page was changed to an ntl one and I found it impossible to change it back to my usual BBC one. This was 100% ntl's fault, but the Help Line were not prepared to perservere in sorting it out despite it being caused by ntl. In the end, by a dint of Internet searching followed by a bit of Registry twiddling I solved the problem myself.

2) In the case of HP, the fact the problem resulted from my following their advice and downloading a new driver seemed to make them determined to sort it out. Again I finally managed to sort it out myself, but it seemed that they would have gone on helping.

However, it would seem from some of the recent posts that I may have been lucky. Who knows? All I can say is that in my case, HP provided excellent support.

[TheTyke1967UK]

Always been one for buying Epson printers mostly through, ease of use and quality of prints even if the loading of software sucks, anyways back to original comment I bought a Epson C40+ after my old epson bit the dust after a good few years, 11 months down the line it started making some wierd noises before finally giving up the ghost. After countless searches no receipt was too hand and bet PC World would have to me to feck off if I called them.

I rang Epson UK , who answered within minutes unlike some helplines, courteous staff too. Described the problem and was told a new printer would be with me in 2 days even tho I could not prove date of purchase.

The shock was this call to them was at 6pm ( 30 mins b4 they closed ) on a Monday, 10am Tuesday morning a courier appeared with the new printer and collected my old one ( 14 Hours from original call ). Yet to find customer service to match that.

Tyke

[Lord Nikon]

A Word of advice... avoid the HP Laserjet 3330 MultiFunction printer LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!

A Company I know bought one, intending to use it as a fax machine and scanner as well as laser printer... not a problem you say, its what it was designed for you say.... PROBLEM

When using its own software, it worked... when using third party software (Pagis) it jammed EVERY time it was asked to scan more than one page, and that took 5 minutes per page.

On searching, I found 64 PAGES of complaints. on the HP website nonetheless..

It has since been replaced with a samsung multi function printer... Much better, and faster

[preacher]

With regards to TS agents (such as myself)....many of us took this job hoping to be able to help people with their pc's and connections!

But then after a few months in this job and you are so weighed down with beurocracy and business limits we get told we do not support one thing that we feel we should, and that we do support another which frankly we should not!

I would love to be able to click for the next call, ask how I can help and just go with the flow and try to fix all their problems to the best of our ability!

On top of that we have call length limits, stating basically that if we take a long time on a call helping a person and our average length of call at the end of the month is high, we get it int he neck, get disciplined and maybe (eventually) fired!

So we have to balance being helpful with being employed!

If I could strat my own business fixing pc's, I would and would help all the people I could, but sadly this is not a perfect world and we are all tied down to business requirements that are frankly beyond our control!

[andygrif]

Sad to hear that. I think this is where modern attitudes by companies to customer service will very soon begin to backfire.

If I'm feeling hurried or that the person at the other end of the phone is not interested then I'm going to start looking for alternatives.

I did the same with my bank a few years back, and now I'm with one that is very good at CS. I make the decision to go into shops where I feel more welcome. I would always go to Dixons if I were looking at buying a TV, but I would never buy it in there favouring John Lewis instead.

I can see the trends over the last few years coming to a head, consumers are become far more marketing and market aware. As a result they are getting better at sniffing out a better deal and the result of this is that they are far less brand loyal.

Companies like ntl need to take note of these trends, otherwise the heap of new customers they have attracted through good deals, will before long figure out that there are better deals and is better service out there - and they'll be off again.

[kronas]

Originally posted by andygrif
.
I can see the trends over the last few years coming to a head, consumers are become far more marketing and market aware. As a result they are getting better at sniffing out a better deal and the result of this is that they are far less brand loyal.

yes that is the case the consumer is realising that they can find a better deal but for some they have no choice but to have NTL as there provider for BB BT is stepping up its roll out and as ADSL providers are offering cheaper faster services with improving or excellent customer services they could easily erode a subscriber base

the only way compaines will learn is if the customer leaves or stops buying the product in big numbers only then will compaines wake up and possibly start to think that they need to improve there service what is it that they are failing to provide that there competitors have ?