third world county

An abbreviated comment on tech support hell.

I don’t mind at all providing the occassional freebie tech support to family and friends. Kinda like a doctor making sure his kids take essential meds or something.

But. What I hate is having to call HP or Dell tech support (especially HP, recently) for naive users who are unable to navigate the bullshit spouted by “tech support” personnel whose only goal seems to be to make the customer keep the piece of crap they’ve been saddled with, unrepaired, cos dealing with tech support is just too painful… Seriously.

Well, it’s either that or their Indian accents are so thick that their “solutions” are incomprehensible, as well as wrong. (That doesn’t bother me, I just tell them I’m nearly deaf and need them to speak very slowly and distinctly. After asking them several times to S-P-E-L-L simple words, they usually take the hint… *heh*)

“We are sorry you are still holding… ” Yeh, they really are. In more ways than one. Sorry I’m still holding, because that means they might have to actually make whole the person I’m navigating their system for. Sorrier I’m still holding, because they cannot, CanNOT bullshit me.

“I will have a case manager call you at your convenience. What time will be best for you?” And the check is in the mail. Right. Another lie.

But more and more it’s become typical of the outsourced tech support offered by such as HP. It’s little wonder HP is having to “reinvent” itself.

Do yourself a favor: do NOT buy HP products. Oh, their cameras are pretty nice lil consumer goods (as long as you understand the parameters they can operate within), and HP printers are nice enough MOR printers, again within certain limitations. But when you need tech support? Frankly, in recent days, even Dell is better. At least the Dell techs I’ve talked to have actually known what they were talking about when pressed hard enough (or when thimngs are escalated high enough *heh*). And the onsite Dell people I’ve supervised (for clients who had Dell products still under warranty but wanted to make sure they were actually treated properly–yes, there’s sometimes legitimate cause to have such folks supervised *sigh*) have seemed to be at least moderately competent.

But HP tech support? Painfully bad. Agonizingly unprofessional. Often wrong. And even more often unintelligible.

Not who ya want Aunt Tilly’s computer to have come from.

“Eh? Whatcha say, sonnie? I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”

Buying a computer this year? Do yourself a favor: build it yourself. It won’t cost less, but it will be built better; you’ll know the components, and tech support is as near as the mirror. If you are inexperienced in assembling simple electronic puzzles, see one of the many excellent tutorials on the web. Heck, the one at TigerDirect isn’t half bad, and it’s at the bottom of nearly every page where TD is selling motherboards, etc. Or this one.

Yeh, yeh, I know: I do this stuff all the time so I think it’s no big deal. But seriously, folks, it’s worth it if only to escape tech support hell. And I’d sleep better at night not having to talk to the “day shift” in some country 10 hours ahead of my time zone… because the call center is swamped with customers “having issues” during U.S. waking hours. *sigh*

And,

“I’m very sorry the case manager did not call within the designated time. I can reschedule the call for sometime in the next 24-48 hours… ”

Translation from an execrable Indian accented English: “We wish you to be inconvenienced enough to just give up and go away.”

It’s probably THE primary reason for offshoring the first level of tech support to Indian call centers, saving “a whole lotta lumps” money for HP (et al) in customers who just give up and make their computers into doorstops rather than pursue having the company actually go to the expense of repairing the thing. Probably “makes” them a lot more than the $5 a day or so they pay their unintelligble Indian English speakers (for the service of driving tech support callers away) “makes” for the company. (Both false economies, IMO: how much goodwill is HP willing to write off?)

That super cheap HP you saw on a TV ad? Skip it. They have to skimp on something somewhere to offer it so cheaply. Components and support. It’ll never be worth the tech support hell when it obsolesces itself one month out of warranty (whether you have the OOB or extended warranty)… right on schedule*.

Comment on your own “tech support hell” experiences here or in email, if you would.

Trackposted to Pirate’s Cove, Rightwing Guy, Blue Star Chronicles, Renaissance Blogger, Culturetastic, and Dumb Ox News, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

*I like the options I’ve gotten for folks who call out of warranty. In fact, I’ve come to depend on Dell/HP tech support suggestions for out of warranty customers to yield new clients for me. Repairing computers “broken” or left unfixed by the “authorized service centers” of major manufacturers is a significant source of new clients. *heh*

I had hours of chuckles, recently, from one really hilarious comment explaining “why” repairs weren’t made to an out-of-warranty Compaq (that’s HP-Compaq, again) by a relatively local “authorized repair center.” The reason given for why the techs hadn’t effected a repair? The “customer [had not brought] the computer’s power cord in with the unit” *ROFL* The “authorized repair center” (a nationally advertized service) still charged the gal for “looking” at the computer (and that’s exactly what the ‘tech” did, I imagine. Look. And write up a bill.)

YMMV, of course.

BTW, there’s a “Wal-Mart economy” set of reasons driving poor tech support, nowadays, and a large part of it is driven by consumers who just WILL NOT PAY for computers and other tech equipment that’s backed by strong support systems.

Back long before IBM sold out its PC manufacturing to Lenovo (a mainland Chinese operation), it dropped its own onsite support for PCs (about 10 myears before the Leniovo deal) and contracted that support out to a company that took subliterates off the street (well, sorta) and “trained” them i n the field to be “onsite tech support” for IBM PCs. Strictly as an “economy” move.

Support quality noticeably declined.

I have little respect or appreciation for any current American computer manufacturer’s tech support (and yes, I have some Apple horros stories in my hip pocket), but Dell and HP/Compaq are at the bottom of the heap in my book, in recent years. HP, especially, now that it’s combined the worst of the Compaq online support with the worst of the HP online support to create an obscurantist online support system AND added the buffer layer of poor English speakers who know little about the products they “support” to drive customer support expenses down… in more way than one.

All to be able to offer dirt cheap computers to people who’ll but a $300 computer at Wal-Mart (or Fry’s or Best Buy *spit* or wherever) on impulse, just cos it’s so darned cheap.

All kindsa folks are offering notebooks for the holidays with about the same (on the surface) specs as my Wonder Woman’s new Toshiba, including HP/Compaq, Dell, etc., at about half what we paid Toshiba for the thing. But. The Toshiba tech support system ain’t broken. Yet. (And it’s a sweet machine that came with more features than we ordered. Now THAT’S how to build goodwill.)