Is it me or is HP support really bad now?

[James M. Dunn]

All,

I've been working with HP servers going on 11 years now and have called for hardware and software support a few times over the past year and have noticed the service slide into a deep dark abyss, other than this forum does anyone know where or what link I can use to complain to HP!?

Thanks in advance and with points.

Jim Dunn

[IT_2007 · Accepted solution]

If you really feel pain, you can escalate to Regional Manager. We had few issue in the past and resolved this way.

[Luk Vandenbussche]

I think the best way is to contact your HP sales representative, to which you can tell your story.

[Peter Godron]

Jim,
as you have a support contract, I would raise this within your company and your buyer, therby adding the buying power of your company. If this does not work, contact your HP Support Co-ordinator with examples.
Always ask to be kept in the loop and foloow up. Personally I have not had any problems with HP support, perhaps depends on how you get to talk to.
Good Luck.

[Jaime Bolanos Rojas.]

James,

Most of the people at HP are really nice, even though no system is perfect, if you got a particular issue with hardware product, then get case scalated from the bottom up, from your tech support, just give them a call, explain them the situation, tell them you want to talk to a manager and go from there, if in any way you are not happy with the service, HP will do everything possible to keep you happy!

Regards,

Jaime.

[Mel Burslan]

James,

I do not know about the size of data center or server farm that you are in charge of, but we have considerable number of unix and wintel servers in our data center, hence we have a quasi-dedicated Account Support Engineer (ASE) for our corporate account.

I have been on the same boat with you as far as the service quality dwindling down. And I brought up this issue in one of our monthly on-site service meetings, where we get face time with HP and the reseller channels.

I, for one, voiced my dissatisfaction with the service I am getting under the new support agreement we went to (or rather forced by hp to go to). Anytime I call for support on a system which is not covered by their very expensive Critical Support (CS)level, I have to call the 633 3600 number and wait an ungodly amount of time to talk to someone, who seems to be getting paid a minimum wage and have no clue what I am talking about, when I call in with a hpux problem. Getting over this hurdle and speaking to someone who can comprehend the problem, takes me anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes depending on the alignment of sun, moon and the stars :)

When I mentioned this to our ASE and indicated that, we may not have all the servers under CS but overall, my company pays in the order of millions of dollars in support agreement fees and we should be treated a little different than the mom-n-pop shop, who has 2 winter servers and calling for support.

His advice to me is to log the bad experiences encountered and send it to him in an email so that he can present it to the people in charge of the support. Otherwise, verbal customer dissatisfaction is not something support is really keen about.

Now, I have a little log book for everytime I have to call this dreadful 6330 3600 number. Fortunately, thanks to forums, I do not have to call them as often as I used to.

Cheers from the left coast.

[James M. Dunn]

II think its this, they (HP) are spread to thin, and they cannot communicate with each group effectively. One hand does not know what the other is doing.

For example: you have a contract number that indicates that you have 24x7 4 hour support and you get a person on the line that tells you that the their computer shows next day, you tell them the server is on 4 hour and yes your thinking the customer is always correct (we will change it for you Mr. customer), but you still find your hard drive has taken the long way to you server, 42 hours to be correct, even if the servers hardware was next day then 24 hours should be the max but 42 hours. By the way this happened to a memory module ticket.

Cheers to all points to all.

thanks,

Jim D

[Mel Burslan]

Jim,

Unfortunately, HP's 24x7 4 hours response time service agreement doesn't worth the trouble I came to figure out. The only thing they are obligated to do is to give you a call in 4 hours from the reporting of the incident and let you know about the progress of your case. Their 4 hours response does not even bind them to send a tech to diagnose the problem in 4 hours. It is on best effort after the first response within 4 hours.

We had a production server (of lesser importance) down for days due to this or that reason, replacing cpu boards, back panel, memory modules one at a time, because they did their best effort scenario instead of replacing the whole bad server and trying to fix the problem in-house, afterwards. This was a couple of years ago, when the service was supposed to be better than what it is today. I am afraid if we fall into the same situation today, what it would take to get that server fixed. God's bolt maybe ? :)

[DCE]

Jim,

I have had much the same experience over the years. It seems that we are paying more for less. We used to have a senior engineer assigned to our account for troubleshooting - now it is "whoever is free"

The 7 x 24 hour response time is a call back time - not an on-site time. It takes up to 24 hours just to get an engineer on site anymore.

the other degradation in service is in new equipment installs - It used to be that when you paid for installation, the equipment could be installed at the customers convenience - now there is an additional charge if a) you want it installed in non-business hours or b)you want it installed quicker than three day minimum of calling the install request in (which they will not accept until the equipment is on site!)

I have gotten to the point were I cc the sales rep with all communications to HP - That has proven to be the most efficient way to get HP to respond with the stated limits (for me at least)

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Well I guess I'm setting myself up to be shot down, but the reality is we get the support we deserve...

10 years ago, when we bought a 'critical' system we were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds/shekels/'insert your currency here' on the tin, and we didn't think much of spending up to 20% of the value of the tin on support contracts. 20% of a $1M tin purchase paid the salary of at least one head to support that system!

Now we are in the land of 'commodity IT' - this is where IT analysts, industry experts and yes, the vendors too have been pushing us - now that critical system might only cost us $0.1M, and guess what - 20% of *that* figure don't pay much of anyones salary, whether they're in Palo Alto, Houston, New York, London, or even Bangalore...

Result? Poorer levels of support except for those who can afford critical support contracts. I work with many vendors, particularly the 'big three' of HP, Sun and IBM, and I see quality slipping in all three. If we want commodity IT, we should expect commodity IT support.

Hopefully some day soon, people will remember that IT is an engineering discipline where quality is key rather than price. Maybe then things might change for the better again.

Yours pessimistically (sic?)

Duncan

[Deoncia Grayson_1]

I thought it was just me as far as terms of poor customer service, i've been at some client sites and it takes almost an act Congress to get the right help on the phone or you have some level 1 trying to help out a level 2/3 systems administrator who already knows more about the problem then the person who answered the phone. I understand they have to do some basic troubleshooting but the business pay for critical support and one shouldn't have to suffer through level 1 support to help diagnose a hardware problem or if you have to leave a message and they have to call you back... Customer support at its best i guess...

[Perignon]

Hi Jim,

Seems that most Hardware and Software producers have contracted myriad of underpaid workers around the world and the result is absolutely desastrous for custommers. HP is alas one of them.

There is much more science in this free-cost forum that you'll ever find in the hotline services they pay.

Alain

[Thomas J. Harrold]

My biggest issue is with the off-shoring of the various call centers, in particular the "new installation" call center. I used to spend about 3 minutes to log a call to have a new server installed, and now it takes about 10-15 minutes.

The staff does NOT seem to know the product line, or how to properly log the installation calls. It's about a 50-50 chance that I'll actually get a follow-up call from the field to install my server.

I have to continually follow up; it's a huge waste of my time.

Thanks for listening. :)

-tjh

[James M. Dunn]

Perignon,

I agree with you on the Forum idea, but I am mostly aggravated at the lack of available parts and terrible customer service.

Once long ago in a far far planet, most parts used to be stored in Tampa or Sarasota and our CE's used to be able to pick up a part and have it installed in no time, heck even if it was in Atlanta it could still be here in 24 hours, the last run in I had with a part replacement to 2 to 3 hours total on the phone and then the part had to travel around our fair marble for 41 hours and get this it was only a hot swap hard drive for a RP7420.

So I was looking for an HP URL like a (cutomer response URL)where I can voice my frustrations.

It soulds to me that most folks are P*ssed off too.

JD

[John M.]

IMHO, I don't think its isolated to HP or even IT industry. It seems to be a business trend everywhere to improve bottom line by driving down labor costs. Cutting support and reducing expenses where ever it is tolerated in the short term.
Also agree with comments about "IT as Commidty"

[Doug Burton]

For me, HP was always the best of three worlds (HP, Sun, IBM), when it came to phone/hardware support. It's becoming a dog.

Most parts are in another country from what I've heard. What's with that?

The 800-633-3600 number is being shuffled off to another country. Not a bad thing unless; a)you can't be understood, b)you can't understand them, or c) they can't help you at all in anyway and have to forward it off to yet another person who may not be able to help. And yes, A, B and C happens to me ALL the time now.

Sigh!

[Paul Jerrom]

Hi Jim,
It's not you!! It took me 45 minutes last week just to LOG a call - I kept getting my Alpha/VMS call routed through the laptop division in India for some reason. I'm glad it wasn't a DR notification I was making. I've raised it with people locally and in Nashua since, but noone seems to care any more.
Let's face it,the only reason ITRC is here is so HP can cut down on their own support numbers!
But I guess even VMS-land is going to the dogs. I had a VMS Ambassador recently suggest I use Google and/or some freeware rather than seeking HP assistance for the product I pay support dollars for. Go figure. Local sales don't care unless you are nearing a hardware refresh.
I wonder how long this thread will remain here...
Keep fighting the good fight!
PJ

[Dave La Mar]

James -
We are just a six year shop using HP support for our HP products. Our experience with calling support have been quite adequate. I will not disagree that at time escalation needs to be requested, but we have been accomodated in a timely manner. Someone mentioned requesting assistance, on support issues, from your ASE. Today I believe they are referred to as ASC (Account Support Consultant), at least in California. We happen to have a top of the line ASC who has managed to bring in the best from HP, on any real serious issue, to handle our issue. Therefor, I too, would recommend getting your ASC or ASE involved.
Not also that there is online support case logging for both hardware and software. This is referred to as Support Call Manager and allows you to log your call, request a return phone call or email and see action on the issue as HP updates the call. Not sure if this is part of the service contract or free with the service contract, but it is extremely useful.
Note also that we are also a Big Blue shop and the support comparison of IBM to HP, for us, has been equally good.
Best of luck.

Regards,
-dl

[Brad Marks]

James, Thanks for bringing this up -- it's been pretty enlightening.
My H/P VAR is no longer selling H/P products due mostly to the support quality downturn. He suggested that, instead of spending big wads of green stuff anually, to purchase support 'by the incident' with a credit card.
Do you or anyone else out there have an opinion re. this? Can I buy a "24x7 4hr." incident? Upside? Downside?
Cheers!
Brad

[Joel Belizario]

Good point Dave brought up, as members of ITRC we all have access to the online Support Case Manager tool, it doesn't address the major issues all brought up here but at least you don't have to call an offshore call center to get a case number logged!

For me in Australia, I find once you get the case number logged you get easier access to the local resources - it doesn't bypass Level 1 completely but it is a big help plus you can see (some) updates so you're not completely in the dark...

Big Blue have a locally based call centre, but I use their online call logging tool as well because I hate being on hold. That and being able to type in a serial number rather than tell someone over the phone is something I like, even though I've gotten used to sounding like a soldier when talking about the alphabet. :)

[Alzhy]

James,

It does appear that your observation is true. And I think I saw the degradation started around last year...

Lately, we have had 3 to 4 critical issues that we actually ended up solving ourselves.

And mind you, this is not just happening I think with HP support - we also are seeing this with the other vendors.

If youhave an ASE or an account manager or rep, I'd escalate immediately to them.

[Ashly A K]

hi!

I hope your issues are sorted out by now!!

Any way, I would like to put my experience with HP support.
01. Most of them are nice, but i have come across with people with bad manners and short tempered!!!! They don't want to listen to your issue, and try baby sitting!!!

02. Few times, the solution which HP's support people gave was a blunder, and it would have stopped the whole of our operations. When they gave the solution, i told them it is not going to work for us and it will impact the business. But, HP person was so sure, and he was forcing me to implement the change what he told. Then, i asked him to verify what he says with another HP person or with his manager and get back to me. What i received after 2 days was a single line apology mail!!

03. They take long...long ...hrs to solve the issue. They will ask for some log, you sent them and wait for 1 or more days. No effect you keep telling that the issue is serious, we need a solution or workaround.

04. Few times, when we had serious issue, we asked for a call back and till today no one called us!!!!

Anyway, as a result, we built up our knowledge and shared it with in the organization. Now we terminated HP support for some of the products(the list includes one of the most critical application we use). We save money, and most important point is, the issues are resolved with in a limited period.

Thanks and Regards,
-Ashly

[Doug Burton]

I had to laugh the other day when I called in a problem. I told the HP rep my issue and had to quote the error to them.

Me: "The error message is quote (whatever the error message was) end quote"
Them: "Could you spell quote for me?"
Me: "err... the key just to the left of the Enter key is the quote key. You can use that instead."
Them: "Oh.... thank you."

They were nice but shouldn't a tech company helpdesk type person at least know the keyboard to some degree?

[Ashly A K]

Very funny!! Looks like people are too "teche", the understand only the Assemble language !!!
I would rate the HP's performance as 5 (in a scale of 1 to 10, where 10=Very Good and 1=Very Bad)

I hope HP will take these inputs and better their services, which is beneficial to HP as well as to its customers.

Keeping the finger crossed
-Ashly

[Alpha977]

Hello James!

Here in Italy, i call sometimes for HP Superdome and HP Openview assistance.
We have a contract and all goin'on good.
The technichains are very prepared and they came here very fast.

Only a bad thing is the call center.

Regards!