ITRC and Support Contracts

[Quin Hammes_1]

I have been working with HP for over a decade now. Good hardware that rarely fails but they have some major organization problems.

We only have a dozen or so HPUX servers and three tape librairies in our two datacenters but we have about a half dozen support contracts.

The ITRC website never shows all the contracts or shows outdated versions of the contracts. Alot of times the contracts which are valid will come up as not being available.

I dont understand why organizations make contract support so complicated and dysfunctionial. No one ever tries to alert us when a contract might be about to expire. It seems like sales and contracts just dont talk to each other. I can't imagine how much more money these tech companies would make if they were more proactive and organized with support contracts.

[juan quesada · Accepted solution]

agree, they only have a project managers for big companies, they are the ones that will notify you in advance of a deadline or so..

you can fix that by installing and configuring insight remote support (either standard or advance version, standard is standalone and advance is SIM integrated) it is free and it will send you emails when contracts are close to (3 months) to expire. You can also click on any system and inmediately check the current contract with all its information.

regards,

[Quin Hammes_1]

update... had a major hardware problem today. Called in and a hardware CE was supposed to call back in an hour. Hour and half goes by and no call. I call support back and they say that the support expired last November. Well why didnt someone tell me two hours ago when I first called.

The joke is that this system is under two different contracts for some reason. Now they are trying to resubmit the hardware support request under the other contract which is still valid.

Total confusion on their part.

How hard would it be to get an automated email three months before a contract expires? We dont need a dedicated sales/service/contract rep to hold our hands because all these guys want to do is sell us more products which we can't afford right now.

[juan quesada]

hp is aiming for services, thats why they bought EDS.....have you deal with other companies?......HP is far better...

[David Claypool]

If you're using HP SIM, you might look into adding on Insight Remote Support Advanced (no extra license charge required--basically, it's free, like HP SIM): http://www.hp.com/go/insightremotesupport

It can take information collected from your systems and through a secure internet connection match up that information with the HP Services database and provide warranty and contract reports to you including entitlement level, contract number and start and end dates. That can help avoid situations like you describe and also cut down on time wasted on the phone.

When you have an open service call it also can grab that information automatically so you can track the status of the call through to its close without ever having to get on the phone.

You can also have it automatically route any hardware failure events to HP Services so when you call to open the service call you'll spend a lot less time on the phone describing the problem because they'll already have the information (including the Field Replacement Unit part number involved) and you can follow along with that on your screen on your end, too.

[Quin Hammes_1]

I will look into that once I work with HP to straighten out all our contracts. Right now it is a big mess, with the same server being on different contracts etc...