Earlier this month, I mused that my HP laptop was always in the press even though it rarely worked (reminds me of Congress). Some of you noticed a comment on that post from Ann Finnie, PR manager of PC’s at HP, and wondered if it was legit. It was; Ann followed up with me via e-mail and indicated that she wanted to resolve the problem to my satisfaction. It’s only fair, then, that I follow up and say that I’m indeed very satisfied with the resolution.
There were some stumbling blocks. The first person that contacted me began with “I understand you wrote something on a blog. What’s a ‘blog’?”, asked me multiple times why I bothered to contact HP when my warranty was expired (even though HP contacted me), and concluded by asking if I wanted to purchase a $700 part to replace the one HP broke originally.
But I followed up with Ann, who promised to work with the customer service department to prevent this in the future, reiterated that she really wanted to win me over, and thanked me for my patience while she worked to fix it. The next call I got was from Robin, an executive in the HP customer advocacy group, who walked me through the customization process for a free new laptop (”would you like one gig of RAM or two?”). The first line of Robin’s follow-up e-mail: “It was a pleasure to talk to you and fun to scope out a notebook that would shock and awe a Cray 1.” I followed up with Ann again, who told me that she’s worked at HP for nearly two decades and strives to keep Bill and Dave’s HP way alive.
One of the commenters on my original post said that “if Ann Finnie is legit, that says a lot about HP.” I agree, and maybe that’s why she’s at the bottom of this story. Thanks, Ann.
March 24th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Sadly, if it takes an executive to get your problem resolved, the company is already screwed. What are the odds of anyone not featured on the cover of Wired getting this same level of support?
March 24th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
I believe Ted Mielczarek is proably right.
Anyway, what are the specs of your spankin new laptop then? It sounds like you made the most of the situation :-) (Who wouldn’t have?)
March 24th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
I hope you selected 2 GB of RAM instead of 1 :)
Glad to see this was resolved. It is good to know that someone working for these computer companies has some sense of customer service left.
March 24th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
That is very cool. I worked for HP at a call center in canada for 6 months and I must say that although most of their stuff if crap (ei hp pavilion) their customer service can be quite good. What i mean by that is most call centers go up in smaller towns where the un empoylment rate is high. Then they try and fill 400 tech support positions. What you get is a mix of people with computer science degrees to poeple with word processing experience. That is why dude never new what a blog was. The level of knowlege in the call centers is hit (10%) and miss (90%).
Michael Ericsson (pb all the way)
March 24th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Ted,
I’m a cynical person by nature, so I considered that. But I also did a search for similar cases and found at least one other person who blogged about his HP laptop and also had his problem resolved by the customer advocacy group. This was last week, so I can’t remember what I searched for to find this person–but as soon as I find it, I’ll paste the link.
I was very careful not to turn this into one of those lectures on the blog as a new form of communication between customers and companies. Blogs are more effective than the private feedback forms companies have offered for years, but that’s only because they’re public and can do more damage. So while I agree with Steve Rubel, Scoble and others that blogs open new lines of communication, I’d love to hear their thoughts on whether companies are really changing or just learning new forms of damage control.
In any case, companies aren’t faceless. I corresponded with Ann on multiple occasions and I believe she’s genuinely interested in making things better. And she did fix my problem, so I do think HP deserves the credit.
-Blake
March 24th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Glad you got yours fixed. . .
I on the other hand have had nothing but problems from HP, and their representatives have always treated me like it was my fault that there was a problem.
I had purchased 4 HP/Compaqs (business/family) in the first half of last year, then had my problems with support start, since then I have looked elsewhere for computers.
March 25th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
I wished my Compaq laptop doesn’t overheat, and have a area of dead pixels that HP refuses to fix several months ago. Now that area has grown triple in size. Needless to say, I have very dark wallpaper that somewhat camouflage the problem so that I can keep my sanity.