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Re: HP/Lefthand support has gone!..

 
Kirk Woloshyn
Occasional Contributor

HP/Lefthand support has gone! ..

While I've only had my SANs for about a year, it seems to me that the level of support HP is providing has fallen off a cliff. HP has brought a tremendous boost in sales. Their support seems to be lagging far behind.

 

If I call in for support it typically takes 45 - 60 minutes to get a live body on the phone. This person is now a call screener who is apparently reading from a script. Even when I have had issues which are listed as "Critical" in the CMC I've been told no techs are available and someone will have to call me back. When I do get through to a tech they are fantastic. I just have a hard time getting through to a tech.

 

Two weeks ago on a Saturday I had two drives fail in one node (four node cluster). This left the cluster in production but with the node failed. After two hours on the phone the tech sent out two drives - to a non existent address in the wrong town 30 miles away. When I called three hours later they corrected the address and sent the drives to me. They were the wrong size. This is now nine hours after my original call. Another hour on the phone got the correct drives ordered for the next day. They sent one drive. Three hours later the other drive showed up. This is now 30 hours after my original call. I went into the shop at 6:00 PM on Sunday to replace the drives. Since two drives were being replaced I had to have a tech put the SAN in maintenance/repair mode. This is something an end user can't do. No techs were available. HP suggested I wait in the office for someone to call. Since they had failed to return calls twice the day before I declined. I scheduled a tech for an onsite call for Monday. The drives were finally replace around noon - 55 hours after my first call.

 

I pay thousands of dollars annually for four hour onsite support. This was a critical issue that left my production data unprotected. (Yes I do have physical backups - but really...)

 

Am I out of line for thinking that this is less than stellar support? Has anyone else experienced similar problems and if so, have you found a way to get the support we're paying for? Thanks for the vent!

 

Kirk

2 REPLIES 2
Subversive
Advisor

Re: HP/Lefthand support has gone!...

While I've only had my SAN for around 7 months, and haven't yet had any major issues, I will say that when I first got the SAN I could call and get a live *actual* technician on the phone. Now it's just as you say, I have to go through a call screener then wait for a callback, which is very annoying.

twg351
Occasional Advisor

Re: HP/Lefthand support has gone!..

I understand your frustration.  I've been a customer of LHN/HP for many years now.  Had a NSM100, NSM150, NSM160 and now P4300.  In the old days the techs would sit on the phone for hours helping me out.  Of course that was generally only during the install or emergencies.  

 

These days there is a wait.

 

BUT ... this is not just HP.  This is the world now, at least for me.  Every single company I deal with (and that's a lot) including where I work has downsized and/or outsourced people.  The economy is tough.  The level of support is simply not there anymore, even for the mythical 24x7 support, it's not really 24x7 anymore.  Sure someone may answer the phone or ship you something, but half the time they're reading from a script or as with what happened above, they botch the job.

 

I will say, when you do get a hold of a LHN tech, they typically know their stuff very well and I can understand what they are saying at least.

 

Scary though, and this is something execs don't understand, if we cannot reply on good solid tech support 24x7 ... that means things are going to take more time to fix.  Scream all they want, it won't change things.