I was listening to a call recording from our Service Quality Tracker, and the call was so ordinary, yet pointless, that I was inspired to create some video commentary.
As Peter says, there’s nothing really horrible about the call except that it’s exactly like every customer service call you’ve ever had to make. It’s oddly infuriating. Listen for yourself. —MEGHANN MARCO
RELATED: Send Us Your Customer Service Calls And We’ll Mock Their Flaws
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Wow, I’m surprised this doesn’t violate a contract or something.
I wonder how the computer operator would have responded had he said “hardcore internet porn” as his primary use??
Its amazing how efficient the follow up call was, yet they couldn’t get a system up and running that can provide basic support for the customer.
“I was listening to a call recording from our Service Quality Tracker, and the call was so ordinary, yet pointless, that I was inspired to create some video commentary.”
wtf do you mean ordinary. they fucking hung-up on the poor guy and you can here in his voice he’s ready to go postal on hp. perhaps shitty, horrible, or bullshit are better words than ordinary, regardless of how common this type of service may be.
This call shows everything that is wrong with the current state of outsourced customer support. When the simplest of tasks take 5 minutes you really need to reevaluate how you think you are helping your customers.
I used to call into HP all the time to order parts and services (we have over 2000 HP machines, so this is common) and I used to wonder what the heck was going on. I would put the calls on speaker phone so I could do something else while waiting. My co-workers used to find the calls amusing when they could hear both sides.
One day we became a HP “self maintainer”. Instead of calling in, we now order parts for ourselves. We log into a website using Active X controls and enter our own orders. This is the same website “Chris” is using. IT IS UNGODLY SLOW. It takes 15 minutes to order a replacment floppy drive! The long silence is “Chris” just waiting for HP’s crappy web interterface to figure out what is going on. The best part is, IT CRASHES AT LEAST 40% OF THE TIME. Then you start over…
wow, guess whose monitoring contract is going to get canceled?
I too wonder how this isn’t violating their contract. If I hired a company to do customer satisfaction surveys and found my company defamed on the internets I’d be hopping mad.
@Scazza: The followup call is performed by a company that reviews customer service calls, and does satisfaction surveys. Their business *is* customer service calls, so I’d expect their calls to be the best. On top of that, the followup call wasn’t trying to resolve a problem; they’re just collecting information on how dissatisfied the customer is.
@royal72: If only that were one of the really shitty, horrible or bullshit calls… I think the submitter is suggesting that, as bad as it was, it was fairly typical of the calls he hears. I know its fairly typical of my experience calling customer service lines for help; I’ve been “transferred” to a dial-tone on many occasions.
Surely VocalTec sends a report to HP summarizing the performance of HP’s customer service calls, probably with suggestions for improvement. My guess is that HP (and everyone else) flat out ignores the report but keeps paying VocalTec to do surveys and make reports, so investors think they care about customer service.
Oh yeah… and so they can fire CSRs that don’t meet quotas.
There was a statement in the video why the tech was asking for the serial number. Perhaps on an earlier call the first tech didn’t ask for it but gave the custy a reference number for when he calls back. Regarding the serial number, certain models might have been manufactured at a certain time when an error was discovered, thus prompting a recall or fix for particular models with a specific serial number within a range. Sorta like why they didn’t recall all of the Peter Pan peanut butter, only ones with certain codes.
fantastic advertisement. does vocalabs make pants? I need some pants.
Yeah I work for a company that contracts with HP for it’s marketing in stores… I already bumped this post up to my supervisor to figure out why this was posted if HP is PAYING this company to help improve its customer service…….
No comment on who I am, but they can take HP off their list….
I have never experienced worse customer service from a tech company than I got from HP — and that was with their “extended service” plan for my 450ci portable printer, and with the involvement of some woman named Mary from the office of the president at HP. Even with her intervention, I didn’t get helped. I ended up stuck in Paris four newspaper deadlines to meet, and no printer. My boyfriend had to buy me a new printer (actually a floor sample from Staples) and bring it with him. I will never, ever buy another HP product, and this call is just another example of why nobody should.
It’s so amazing how people who run big companies can be so utterly clueless about what it takes to keep a customer. How much do they save outsourcing to Calcutta? I bet they never call their own “help” lines. Here’s my assignment to the nimrods running HP: Buy a Mac, and then call Applecare and then call your own service dolts, and observe the difference.
Applecare techs, in my experience (with Macs since 1985), are helpful, speak good old American English, know their product, and use common sense to solve your problem and get you off the phone…none of this four minutes of info-hosing, and all the rest. Apple computers and their techs might not be perfect — I’m sure there are those who have issues from time to time, but by and large, there’s not just a world, but a universe of difference.
Ha ha ha.
That capitalism for..
I generally dont buy anthing that is outsourced to india, since the service is HORRIBLE. Some dont actually speak english, or really bad…..
…and i dont buy my hardware form a company that has shiny stores and people that call themselves geniuses but are actually really stupid and dont know even what ifconfig is, or emacs…..[apple]
I bought my laptop from IBM a while back…..
Incredible customer service.
You can actually use the website to have IBM call you and help you order a computer or solve technical problems.
Also, your order is reviewed by a human, so when i made the mistake of purchasing the business warranty, they called me about it and they said they would fix the problem, and they did.
They do have part shortages, but they did give me a discount.
They were actually the first company to have have linux as an alternative to windows on their laptops…..redhat i believe…
IBM was probably the best customer service I ever encountered.
When you call IBM, even lenovo, guess where their call center is……
NOT in Bangladsh
NOT in Bombay
NOT in Malaysia
Its right here in New Jersey where it has been for the past century.
@weave: Sure you’d be mad, and probably fire the company, but if you didn’t insist on a confidentiality provision in the contract, you’re out of luck. This isn’t defamation.
@mattbrown: Indeed, a great ad for VocaLabs, probably worth losing a contract with HP (or maybe the contract had already ended before this went out).
He probably just asked for the serial # as a stall tactic to read the file, or load the website, or something.
i hate customer service. hate hate hate hate hate it. any time i call a company, i never get a person right away. first it’s voicemail hell. then you get some guy in india. i wouldn’t care that much if they said hello this is babu how can i help you, but they americanize the names so it’s “Hello this is Chris” in a poorly disguised accent. The courtesy is so fake, they say please every other sentence and apologize profusely for every little thing. I needed a simple replacement part for a Motorola cell charger (the splitter to do a phone and headset, provided my phone and headset models) and had to sit there while the guy goes “OK sir please hold on I will be very happy to help locate the part for your HS820 and V557, I am going to put you on hold an go locate the part is that ok sir?” – YES! Just put me on hold and go find me the damn part. And I wound up being sent the wrong part.
Called back, and the guy is giving me a runaround saying the part doesn’t exist – I know it exists because I HAD ONE. I hang up on him out of frustration, and keep calling back until I get a woman who doesn’t have as incredibly thick an accent – she took about 20 seconds to locate the correct part and overnight it to me.
Farking ridiculous.
Funny part is, as soon as the man started explaining the problem, I knew exactly what the tech should have said — because I waded through the same issue with Gateway. Basically, thanks to the MSFT anti-trust lawsuits, computer companies don’t ship out software restore disks with their PC’s. They have you create ‘em once they are in your posession — a step that I found on page 37 of my Gateway Media Center PC.
I lost about a week and a half of work because Gateway needed to send me a full restore disk, from which I created the software restore disk. I basically went Media Center -> XP Pro -> wipe -> Media Center -> disk creation -> XP Pro -> software install. It was annoying, because the audio codecs were part of said software package.
Buying a Media Center PC for a work environment is horrible.
(Not to mention that Best Buy’s “professional install of XP Pro” that we were supposed to get from the local store basically amounted to them pulling an off the shelf computer off the rack, and shipping it to us with an XP Pro box. )
This customer service still sounds better than Frys. I ordered something from them around Christmas time and I would listen to music for 15 minutes before the phone abruptly hung up. It took seven tries to finally get through. They eventually fixed the hang-up problem, but that only caused even longer hold-times.
In response to the people who asked about why we can release the recording of this call, this particular survey was not commissioned by HP, so we have no contract or obligation to HP to keep the data confidential.
We did this survey as part of our “Service Quality Tracker” program, which we run as a public service (and for the publicity, of course). If you visit the URL in the video (www.vocalabs.com/sqtrack), we also post survey data on HP and three other companies. You’re also invited to participate and add your own two cents worth. Instructions are on the web page.
Of course every customer contract we sign has a strict confidentiality clause. We don’t talk about those surveys. But because we are a premium survey company, our customers tend to be the ones who take this stuff seriously.
We did get the customer’s permission to release the call recording; that’s actually one of the survey questions not included in this video.
Peter Leppik, CEO
Vocal Laboratories Inc.
Typical HP support. Pitiful and pointless.
HP is a customer support nightmare.
Oh, this call was a delight, with the exception of the disconnection. I can’t count the number of calls that I’ve had that went far far worse than this. I really should start recording these for fun.
This is why I love my new mac. Real people pick up the phone and do their best to get my system fixed. Oh, and if I want to talk to someone in person, I drive over to a store and talk to a friendly face. AppleCare’s worth every penny.
try this with dell, I had a hardware issue and it took me 30 mins to get a hold of Mark at Bangladesh at 2:00 am. 15 mins for him to find my case number and cpu info 15 more mins to go through some steps that resulted in the diagnosis of the problem which I already told him when he first picked up the phone and 10 more mins for him to explain to me that the rep i called 5 days ago gave me the wrong information about my warranty.
Result 1:10 mins just for this second call, a busted laptop with a messed up power jack and me never shopping at dell.
I have never shopped at dell since, I will refuse to buy a single product from them even if it is cheaper than new egg (which has great customer service). In addition I try to discourage people from buying dell. Success so far including my mom, cousin, uncle, 3 friends.
You know, one thing that you people do not understand about the tech support business is just what horrible place call centers are to work in. Most of these outsourced call centers are place in cities and towns where there is very little employment. (I’m talking about the ones in North America)
That way they do not have to pay tech support agents very much. Try a little over min wage. They don’t have to give them raises. Or any real benefit. If they don’t like it they are free to quit.
Most of the big call center companies in North America really treat their employees very badly. Because they know they can just hire a new batch. Being that there is little opportunities else where in town. They naturally always have applicants looking for work. I can personally tell you, I have worked in a few call centers. All in Canada, dealing American customers. All where equivalent to working in a sweat shop. And I have worked in a sweat shop before, so I know.
Anther thing you people fail to see is that these tech support agents have to jump through hoops before they can help you with your issues. If you only knew the amount of paperwork these poor agent have to fill out before they actually deal with your problem, it would drive you nuts. Why so much paperwork … is basically so they can track how good a job the HP, Dell, Verizon of the work are doing at keeping their total cost down.
So you can buy a $400 computer. Next time your sitting there frustrated with you tech support agent. Think about that fact they could be a single mother with little options for employment. Think about that fact that she never get to spent time with her child. Because you guys want $400 with free tech support at 4 am in the morning.
Even if you can get past the language barrier (the tech’s English sounded fair enough, but I’m good at listening through the accent of “Chris”)
you still have a tech that does not listen to the customer, does not ask what the problem is, even though he could have all the info he needs from the case number previously assigned.
A little more familiarity with phone conversation would help. Things like, “Please hang whith me a minute while I’m waiting for my computer to pull up your file” or things like that go a long way to make you feel comfortable. Long awkward silence pauses are just awkward.
“Chris” is probably working under the pressure of answering 7 millions calls per hour, for $5/day, with a boss and customers screaming at him all day. Not that I’m making excuses for him, since after all he’s just a pawn under the huge HP organization.
Finally I’d say HP tech support is really hit or miss. They have call centers all over the world. I found that calling the same number repeatedly did not always guide you through the same voice active menu, did not always end you in India and I found it practical to call until I could find someone I could talk to (read: who would listen to me, whose english was acceptable, who was knowledgeable, who explained to me what he was doing)
Further proof that companies don’t need to be cutting corners in the area of customer service. Pay a couple extra bucks an hour and give me someone who knows what they’re talking about, not some guy in New Delhi claiming to be “Johnny Appleseed.” All these outsourced reps are doing is reading from a script in the first place. As a general rule, not making your customers jump through flaming hoops to get something this elementary done is a good way to keep them.
I would hope that the people here who are criticizing the posting of this video aren’t affiliated with HP. If you are, you are part of the problem. The lesson you should be learning from the video isn’t that a partner posted a bad support call to the Internet, it’s that the call happened in the first place.
I’ve had excellent support from Dell, but I purchase Dell enterprise-grade products, which have their own group of real, live Texans to answer the phone. When you call, a real human f’ing being answers the phone, usually on the first or second ring. No phone trees, no defective voice recognition, a real live Texan. Even better, the real live Texan is a tech with a brain and knowledge! They fix my problems and ship out parts, all in under 5 mins a call.
For the other companies, it’s gotten so bad that I picked up a second phone line so I can remain on hold while getting other business done. I was talking with a friend who works at a local hospital for medical billing and she says business-to-business (contacting the insurance companies) isn’t any better.
When I can, I WRITE a snail-mail letter to the company, certified, return-receipt. Amazing how well this works and how painless it is. Quick, concise resolutions. No hoops to jump through, just a matter of patiently waiting about a week for a resolution to my problem.
As soon as I read through the description of the clip, I was expecting all of the following to happen:
1) The CSR would repeat information either already given to him or easily accessible (at least, we would be inclined to believe that such information was easily accessible).
2) The CSR would have to transfer the customer to another CSR.
3) The customer would get disconnected at least once.
I’m glad to see that I went three for three with my predictions.
Here’s one of my horrible tech support stories:
I had questions about extending the warranty on my Dell laptop, so I started an online chat with a CSR. After 15 minutes of wait time, a CSR joined me, and I told the rep that I wanted to know how much it would cost to extend my warranty. The CSR made me confirm all sorts of info about my system. After all that, the CSR flatly told me that I could call some phone number to get the information I needed.
i had to make 5 different calls to verizon about my dsl service…i am somewhat hearing impaired,and would notify the csr of this….4 of the calls were bummers….one woman mumbled so bad i couldn’t understand a word….another’s accent was so rough i had to give up on that call….two were hang-ups……i finally connected up with a very good rep….he walked me through the set up and configurations, he had an accent, but spoke slowly and clearly, i had no problem understanding his directions…….i hope i can connect up with him if/when i have other problems….
Wasn’t it VocaLabs that posted the audio from another phone call that was posted here? The one where the woman kept trying to talk to the computer in full length sentences?
These days when something goes wrong with just about anything, if I can’t fix it myself I’m more likely to just throw it away or cancel than deal with customer service or tech support. It’s ridiculous.
@moorie679: I disagree with the comments regarding Dell tech support, at least on the business side. We’ve got a number of dell servers and whenever we need anything, disks, parts, whatever, it’s usually shipped overnight, at no charge. We even got Windows disks for a server we bought off eBay from a third party at no charge, even though the server was End-Of-Life with Dell.
This is eerily reminiscent of a call I placed to Buy.com yesterday to find out why my order hasn’t processed despite being the fifth business day after I placed an order on an item that is in-stock. First, after holding for 15 minutes and hearing the IVR repeat the same inane spiel about RMAs about 60 times, I had to explain everything to the first rep only to be transferred, of course. The second rep needed everything repeated, as she barely understood English. Of course, nothing of my explanation to the first rep made it past the transfer, so I had to start over. The second rep couldn’t even locate the order. She tried telling me several times that it was not in the system. I told her that it was and just to keep looking or perhaps to ask for help. After 5+ minutes of her checking in by chirping “Hello?” she located the order. She proceeded to tell me that the order was subject to credit card and address verification and was “processing.” After much more frustrating language barrier-ridden communication, I was assured that the order would be released within the magical “24 hours.” We’ll see.
@bokononist: I am probably going to get flamed off Consumerist for saying this… but as working for a 3rd party that contracts with HP, 1) this video posting is unacceptable. HP is/was paying for their service to improve their services… and this company posts a particularly bad interview on the internet? That’s not helping… and 2) Every company is going to have some bad customer support experiences… I don’t like that HP farms out customer service to India, but thats the way things have been trending in the industry. I know HP values their customers because part of my job is to help retain customers and build loyalty. This was just a bad experience that got highlighted.
@Troy F.: That’s exactly what they want you to do.
*follows the link to YouTube*
Are you sure VocalLabs posted this? I mean, yes.. the director says VocalLabs.. but this is also their only video. And they joined yesterday.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they shopped this video around to potential customers to show why their services are needed, and one of them decided to “get back” at VocalLabs by posting it on Youtube. It would be all the more sweet if said poster was a competitor to HP.
Hmmmm…I wonder if HP and AT&T are related….SAME BULL$HIT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!
@mnslinky: DUDE business side is different from the individual…you are trying to compare apples to oranges.
The phone number that you call and the support that you get is totally different from the one that I can reach.
For more go to http://www.Ihatedell.net and read the horror stories then get back to me.
Hey, editors and readers: How about publishing a few GOOD customer support calls as well and explain what’s so good about them?
Personally, I’m going to try recording my phone calls when I finally gather up the energy to possibly call Verizon for a TV, Internet, and TV+Internet quote and then when I call to renegotiate or cancel Comcast. Sorry to say, I’m expecting bad experiences.
Since I’m in Massachusetts, I have to tel them I’m recording it. Would “I am recording this call for my records” suffice?
If this only happened when you called HP, I’d say “Who cares?” But this is pretty typical of what happens when you call *any*where for any kind of help. It’s maddening…
@AngrySicilian and others:
Enough with the moral indignation already. The CEO of Vocal Laboratories has already posted a response to your unsubstantiated allegation that they violated some sort of contract with HP. They are not a contractor of HP, and recorded the call of their own volition as a way of showcasing their talents.
The only reason that call centers can get away with giving such poor quality service is that customers will not stop buying their products for that reason.
When is the last time you researched customer service satisfaction ratings before making that large purchase?
If you did, you are in the enlightened minority.
@coolcat_opee: Well said
@ all: Factor in also that call centers here in NA also tend to be located in Right To Work/Anti Union/Service Economy states. Makes it too easy for employers to give in to the disposable employee concept. Plus people forget: if people will insist on a cheap product, they’re going to get exactly what’s paid for.
HP has the most horrible customer service. No one knows exactly what they are talking about. You can tell them exactly what the problem is and they will retort that you are wrong. Their online chat support is just as bad as their telephone service. I keep my chats. They make me laugh because of how stupid the “technicians” are. My favorite interaction with HP? The time I wanted to use my 3 year extended warranty I purchase 7 months before and they told me they never received payment, even after charging my credit card. It took two weeks to get resolved. I got an extra free year for all of the trouble, though.
I’d say his call (and all the other pointless calls he said he made in the past) are typical HP behavior.
A few years back I bought an HP laptop. The DVD burner NEVER WORKED. From day one. Never ever worked.
After countless calls I got a label to mail the computer to the HP repair center. It came back untouched.
I kept being transferred between India and the USA and not once two HP employees talked to each other.
Finally, I took two mailing addresses from hp.com (they refused to give me a mailing address over the phone) and mailed two very angry registered letters.
Miraculously, some Indian guy called and said thay have been trying to reach me but my phone (my work phone, which I use every day) wasn’t working and finally I managed to ship my computer and have it repaired.
Of course, after that I swore never to buy an HP product again and I have kept my promise!
When I saw this on Digg, I just had to listen to it. Why? Well, because I work in HP customer service. Nope, not tech support, just regular customer service, where you call to return something, or bitch about how all our support is in India. I spent the majority of the time listening to this, shaking my head and laughing. I have to call these guys all the time, and let me tell you, tech support is, in a word, in competent. We often get issues transferred to us which are legitimate technical issues, and tech sends them over to freakin customer service, where we are not trained or equipped to handle the situation.
So, what do I do? Well, unless the customer is going totally ballistic on me, I usually feel sympathy enough to call over to tech support for them, and try to get an issue revoled. Now, let me tell you, it’s just as bad for me as it is for the customer. They can’t get anything done right, it takes forty two transfers before I’m finally in the “correct” department, people put me on hold for 5-10 minutes at a time for no reason (Read: To do such menial tasks as look up an account), and then, worst of all, they will often say “This is a customer support issue, I will be transferring you to customer service now”, at which point I have to scream “I AM CUSTOMER SERVICE, DO NOT TRANSFER ME TO MY OWN DEPARTMENT”.
Oh, the joys of HP tech support. I know you customers feel frustrated when you have to deal with them, now just imagine having to deal with them every day. I try to to my job well, I want to help people, but when it’s an issue that is out of my hands, I hate the helpless feeling I get by being forced to try to drag a resolution out of people that are completely incompetent in their work.
@segfault: Mind posting a link to this statement? I believe you but it’d be nice to be able to read it too.