Online RMA adds more time savings for customers

[Matthew_Abelson]

Co-authored by Kati Bell

Providing world-class support for customers is part of HPE Aruba Networking's customer first, customer last philosophy. We have built an award-winning Support Services group that focuses on innovation just as much as the product engineers do. A primary tool the engineers developed is the HPE Networking Support Portal (NSP), a key enabler for saving customers time and proactively providing important notifications.

NASP was built from the ground up to meet the needs of customers of all sizes and located throughout the world. I want to highlight “Online RMA” for this blog. RMA stands for “return material authorization” – an approval required before hardware replacement parts are shipped.

Figure 1. HPE Networking Support Portal landing page

Hardware replacement

 With HPE Aruba Networking Foundational Care, customers decide which products require the fastest level of hardware support, ranging from onsite assistance to next business day delivery of parts. For those rare times when they need to replace their HPE Aruba Networking hardware, and they do not have onsite support, Online RMA is an important tool.

Why online RMA is important

When a customer requires hardware replacement, they require approval from our Technical Assistance Center (TAC). Murphy’s Law dictates that things will go wrong at the worst possible time which means a customer can experience a hardware issue when the TAC is very busy, requiring them to wait until an engineer is free to determine if an RMA is granted. During hurricane and typhoon season, or when other disasters impact a broad geographical region, Online RMA has proven to be extremely useful.

Whether it’s overnight or the middle of the day, a customer can use the Online RMA feature, allowing them to get that approval without having to wait for a TAC engineer to become available. This greatly simplifies the process, allowing customers to request an RMA in as little as one minute so they can move on to other projects.

Customer testimonials

Here’s what our customers are saying about Online RMA:

“2-minute online RMA! I stopped buying from everyone else. Intel and Aruba doing this online RMA thing…has changed our lives! Thank you.”
Cognetics Networks

“Excellent. You Guys make everything so easy, as far as whole process goes. Ten times easier than RMA with Cisco.”
University of Oklahoma

“It worked great, it was convenient. It does what I needed it to do.”
Newark Public Schools

How to use online RMA

Our development engineers developed a fast and simple process for customers to request an RMA online:

1. Log onto the HPE Networking Support Portal
2. Click on Online RMA, then "Request an RMA"
3. Enter the serial number for the device requiring replacement and answer two simple questions
4. Identify the issue
5. Confirm contact and shipping information
6. Submit the request and make note of the Case ID for future reference

You can view your Online RMA cases and status on the Online RMA dashboard.

Watch this video to see the value of the Online RMA process.

Get started today

All HPE Aruba Networking customers can leverage this with online RMA process. Customers can take control of their RMA needs and reduce the time it takes to get their environment back to operational readiness.