Reply to HP posting dated 11-14-09 for bios update 5.22

[Trillium]

Last night about 5:00pm I got a call from Kajin who was apparently following up. I told him I did not get a call from case (cash) manager and I had last talked with Kajin at  about 10:40am. He wanted to work with me right then and there. I told him I have to do dinner right now and don't have another hour to kill or more at this time. So I told him I would call tomorrow at 8:00am.

I called this morning at 8:00am and got a "Mark" in India. He wanted to help me. I kept telling him that Kajin had escalated this and I was to talk to higher tech support or case manager. We went round and round. My husband could hear me say "do you understand English, it was to be escalated". This went on for about 25 minutes. He tried to find supervisor, then case manager. I was put on hold several times. Then Mark wanted to set it up for service. I said I would really like to talk to supervisor or case manager before hand to find out what is wrong with machine first. OMG. It was like pulling teeth. You could easily waste days with these guys if you had no idea about computers. These 9180's and other models must be a cash cow for these call centers. I have seen some posts that folks have spent like 20 hours on the phone with call centers trying to resolve things and I can see how easily this can happen. I do feel for these guys like Mark since they are given these scripts and they really have no training to really troubleshoot beyond the script. They must hate us pushy Americans.

Then I get "Neil" a tech supervisor. Neil listens and he gets what I am telling him. He knows about the mobo issues with the 9180. He says it is a truckee mobo and that they will replace it. I asked him with what mobo and he says they don't tell him. I asked since some on the forum had mobo replaced and still the problems persisted. He assured me that the new mobo doesn't have the compatibility issues of the truckee mobo. 

Fortunately he says I have the warranty on site support so they will send certified HP technician to replace the board. This was good news since I recycled the box etc and I was thinking I would have to DBAN the hard drive if I had to ship the whole thing back. He  sets it up where I get the mobo Fedx to me by tomorrow and with my schedule a technician will be here between 8-12am on 11-25. He gives me service order number and service ticket number.

 Neil was like a breath of fresh air. He explained that he gets the updates and info about HP products and that is why he can troubleshoot it so quickly. I found Neil's English to be very good and his ability to communicate much better.

What HP needs is a call center full of Neil's. I think more training and ways to keep guys like Neil would make a huge difference between customer and company relations. I could feel my blood pressure rise when talking to Kajin and Mark and it just made me so angry and frustrated since these guys were suppose to help not hinder. That is what they did.

 I must have spent less than a half an hour with Neil even with my long explanations. That is all it really needed to take. But I did spend a total of 2 hours plus all the time posting to forums and researching the web about 9C errors and etc trying to find solutions which took hours.

I did ask Neil about the energy saving issues with monitor and he says first replace the mobo to see if that resolves monitor issues as well.

Here is my suggestion:

1) Assign HP employees to effectively respond to questions on forum before customers escalate.

2) Better training for call center staff. 

3) Provide more supervisors since they are hard to get on the phone.

4) If I put in 9180 in search engine on HP site then pull up information about the known issues associated with the unit and give information on where customers need to go to get help and what the solution is. Keeping customers in the dark only adds to customer's suspicion.

5) I am relieved but still wonder about this new mobo since HP has not given supervisors any info about it. HP needs to provide supervisors with more info on the mobo to ease customer's concern.

 HP I am hoping that all this specific recount of how a customer is treated may result in a more efficient way and less costly way to manage customer service/tech support.