Our printer has little parts that spit ink onto the paper, called print heads. Sometimes they fail, even when still under warranty. Since it’s an older model printer, Hewlett-Packard has apparently decided to have the things made as cheaply and as poorly as possible.
Despite the probably high rate of failure, they still stamp a warranty date on the things, leading to expectations of free under-warranty replacement by HP.
HP has apparently grokked that putting a warranty on a rather pricey part is not the same as actually servicing that warranty. In the past, things were relatively easy. You took the failed part to the printer dealer and they gave you a new one. They sent the junk to HP and got reimbursed. Too customer friendly! You could even meet your deadlines, since it only took an hour at most.
That client-centric policy just made clients too happy. The company, not so much. It seems there were lots of defective print heads and this policy of replacing them like giving out Halloween candy just wasn’t economically feasible (making them so they’d last longer than the warranty to eliminate the problem apparently isn’t an option).
Now, instead of hours you get your replacement part in days. You must call the correct person in the correct department at the correct time while correctly stating what’s wrong. This takes about twenty minutes, not counting the HP agent’s demands for printer model, serial number and product number – when the failed part isn’t even the printer! They really need the printer’s product number or it’s no deal (it’s an older model, so the model and serial numbers aren’t good enough!).
Forget about that deadline. The part gave no warning that you have perhaps two more full-color plots left before everything becomes a cat piss shade of yellow-green (or another color, depending on the print head). While you wade through all the numbers HP requires prior to shipping the part, the clock is ticking. Then the part will have to travel from somewhere by some no doubt circuitous route, to arrive… when?
Although HP makes all manner of computers and internet thingies, there is no way to use any form of 21st century technology to resolve parts warranty issues. You can’t log in to their site, report the problem, fill out a form and get satisfaction.
An easy customer-oriented parts replacement policy would be ruinous, it seems. If the process were easy there would be all manner of satisfied customers getting replacements for defective parts. People would keep their old plotters longer instead of buying flashy new ones that do essentially the same thing as the old ones, except with fewer print head problems (and new loan payments). They might even buy new HP plotters once enough years had passed for major components to wear out, instead of looking for a company – any company – capable of making a printer and having real customer service.
Get the suckers to buy their own damn parts, much more frequently than they should, too. Make the replacement process so convoluted, so free of logic, so damn difficult that people will give up. Constantly change the system so that nobody can learn it and speed through to a quick resolution. Make them wish they had a shiny new plotter that would just print tirelessly, without problems.
I’m sure many users give up, unhappy. People who give up cost HP zip in replacement parts. Instead, HP will profit. People giving up on warranties will buy their own parts. Some may do the HP Hater’s ritual: face towards Silicon Valley, fly the bird, curse HP and its evil executives, spit on their logo and scream a yell of defiance. All this is, of course, futile. In the end HP will be richer. Money is everything; customer service is irrelevant.
HP knows the terrible truth: printers don’t work without print heads, and people gotta print!
The other terrible truth, incredible as it may seem, is that their competition is apparently even worse!
So, instead of resolving the issue with a quick trip to the HP Authorized DesignJet dealer, you now must call the correct number. No, not the 3600 number. That one will hang up on you – plotters are “online only”. Never say, “Mac” either – that’s “online only” too. Never mind that the part fails no matter what kind of operating system it’s hooked up to – it even fails to make a test print with no computer connected.
The typical conversation goes like this:
“What are you calling about?”
“A bad print head.”
“What’s the serial number of your printer?”
“The printer is working fine. The print head is defective, not the printer.” Oh. My bad. I need to explain as I would to a child, “A print head is only a part of the printer, something that wears out and needs to be replaced periodically. It’s a little thing that squirts ink onto paper.”
“Oh…” (pause)… “You need to talk to someone else…”
So, you need to call the 6836 number. Oh. Not. That’s consumer products. Plotters are business products. Call the 5144 number. That’s business products. You then need to request the DesignJet division.
The DesignJet Division does not have a direct number, and can’t be contacted via the internet. You must personally speak to someone using a telephone, who will then switch you like an operator during the times of the Wizard of Oz.
You can try saying, “operator”. Sometimes that works. You do, at least, get a live human. This person will have no idea what you’re talking about, however. You will have to explain to Hewlett-Packard how the parts that they designed, engineered and built go together and what they do.
The Jedi Mind Trick may work: “You don’t need my serial number. It’s not what you’re looking for.”
They will ask for your name almost every time you get a new person. They will then ask for a purchase date for the product. The answer is “more than thirty days ago”. That means they now have to deal with you, since the store who sold the thing to you would have had the onus within that period. They’ll have you describe the problem, then realize they don’t understand anything. That’s when they’ll transfer you. Again. To a totally new person, who has none of the information you’ve already given several times. Repeat. Transfer. Repeat.
So, again, you explain what a print head does, and why it doesn’t work:
“What is the problem?”
“The print head is defective.”
“How do you know it’s defective?”
“The entire page is green.”
“So?”
“The plotter also says it’s defective and unrecoverable.”
“But are you sure?”
“Yes, I got a second opinion. The page truly is green; my beautiful red objects are gone.”
“Does it work with a new print head?”
“Yes, I spent lots of money on a new print head, and that one does work. There is a beautiful magenta gradient on the test page, like a sunset off the coast of Zanzibar.”
So, eventually it is established, although not beyond a doubt, that the print head indeed does not know magenta from an alpha channel (transparency). They check to see if I’m in their system. I’m not, since this used to be handled by the dealer until HP decided that things were just too easy for clients that way.
Finally, the eighth person I talked to took down the model number of the defective part, the warranty expiration date (cleverly stamped in nine point type, black on black, on the gizmo), my name, phone and e-mail.
Someone will call or contact me, eventually, to inform me if they will indeed replace the part. Or not. They never outright say they’ll replace the defective, in-warranty part. Seems kind of shady not to replace parts under warranty, but I never got a cheerful, “No problem, sir! We’re shipping that replacement c4822a 80 to you as we speak.”
At this point, things are far from resolved. He never asked for my address!
Timeline
day 1, about 14:45 in California…
This is where I spent all those minutes of searching out the correct HP Customer Service number, being bounced from people who, apart from their voices were uniform in their lack of service or comprehension. It’s all described above.
hours later….
Ah, an e-mail. They need my name, address, phone, e-mail, business name, serial number of the printer (remember, the printer is not the problem – the print head is the culprit here). Then they’ll send a replacement print head.
____
hours later….
Oops. They need the printer’s product number, too. This is not the model number. It’s something else. I have no idea why a computerized company like Hewlett-Packard can’t find the product number from the serial number. Aren’t serial numbers all unique to each individual piece of equipment that they make?
____
day 2…
There is no product number on the printer. It’s called a model number. No wonder I couldn’t find it. So I sent a photo of the information sticker on the back of the printer. I don’t expect him to take my word that there’s nothing actually called a product number.
____
an hour later….
You now have a Case Number, the part can now be shipped! After furnishing all kinds of details on the plotter, the print head will possibly arrive on Friday, two days from now (three from the day of the phone call), at about the same time I’m supposed to deliver the plans.
____
day 3…
More e-mails from HP. I thought the “<CASE:xxxxxxxxxx> HP case xxxxxxxxxx” e-mail was optional, but it turns out that it wasn’t. Those questions needed to be answered or I would never see the “CREATE CASE/LOG SUCCESS <CASE:xxxxxxxxxx>” message.
These are the questions, but my language here is more colorful than what I used in my official response. The meaning was the same, though. It’s just when you’re dealing with people who may have some sort of mental condition, you can’t use metaphors, satire, humor, allusion or any of the things that make something worth reading.
Is the printer working? Of course it’s working! I had to buy a new print head, but the printer always worked. It was the print head that wasn’t working! The plot was bright green before and it’s normal now.
Can we now archive this case? Like I know what their rules are for “archiving” – and if I say, “yes”, does that mean I can kiss any further service related to defective print heads goodbye? What does this mean, really?
Are you completely satisfied with your overall HP experience? NO, and what did you expect? I’m doing the I HATE HP DANCE, remember? I had to by a part that costs almost $200 to replace a part that was under warranty because HP no longer allows their authorized dealers to exchange a warrantied defective part for a new part. The new process requires days of down time for a part that fails in less than an hour (when it decides to go bad, it goes!).
Is there another pending issue with HP you’d like to comment about? Well, I still haven’t received the replacement part, so I suppose it’s still “pending”.
Am I happy with the agent (or whatever they call him) whom I talked to, the one who finally seemed to understand what a print head is? Well, he asked for every number I could find on the printer before doing a thing (remember that the printer isn’t the problem here). I still haven’t received the part. Nobody else at HP seemed to have a clue; their goal was maximize frustration, it seems.
So, if I had not bought a replacement part, I simply would not meet my deadline.
All the information was on the print head itself or on the back of the plotter. It wasn’t always named as he indicated, but it worked in the end. Amazingly, HP didn’t demand some information written on a small card inside the machine, accessible after removal of 16 Torx screws in the correct order, sliding an electrified cockroach-prevention panel out of the way and reading it in Braille.
So, I wonder. Is this the best America can do? Make shoddy, unreliable products and fail to support them? Take a dealer-based system that worked well and replace it with delays and bad faith? Move all manufacturing of key components far away where they’re not even made well enough to last longer than the warranty date stamped on their cases? No jobs for people in this country, poorer quality than before, and proud of it. I’m sure they’ll all get huge bonuses for all the money they saved the company.
Never mind that I’m going to take a long, hard look at an Japanese printer brand next time around and if their product is equivalent, let’s just say that I won’t be practicing the I Hate HP ritual any more.
____
A few minutes later…
I think they closed the case, if that’s what this means: “Replies to this email are not monitored or processed, and will not result in an update to your case.”
What good would an update do? I’m not going to change their “we don’t care about your deadline” policy. Nothing is. The old policy no doubt cost HP more, and some bright person with a squeaky clean MBA likely figured that poor service in the present does not equal lack of sales in the future. Doesn’t it?
____
11:06. The package arrives, and it’s the right part!
They’re really saving money here! Instead of having the local dealer put the failed parts in a box and ship them all at once – and giving me a replacement that was bulk shipped by truck, my one part came here via FedEx Express from Duncan, SC. On an airplane, no doubt. Maybe that high price for parts includes shipping of defective items?
So what about the issue of sustainability and carbon footprint? The replacement came by air. A bit of internet research indicates that it air shipping via 747 uses somewhere between a bit over three to eight times more carbon than if it went by truck (luckily, a truck will take it back to South Carolina for analysis).
There’s a form inside the package, asking the same questions, again. They also ask for a sample of the failed print. Too late! It was thrown away on Day Two. Why keep ugly, Martian-slimed sheets of paper around the office?
So, they abandoned a lower-carbon, truck-based system that gave clients faster turnarounds for a high-carbon, lower turnaround, less friendly implementation. Poorer service, less green, more annoying.