Last week Hewlett-Packard ‘HPQ’ stunned everyone with its announcement that it looking at a major re-organization. What really surprised me was Hewlett-Packard’s indication that it did not believe the personal computer industry didn’t have a bright future. After getting past the initial shock of the announcement, I began think about HP’s personal computer business.
I own a HP personal computer. It is currently out of service, but I used it for years. It was a great machine, and HP’s online support is among the best. However, the problem with HP is its telephone support; which I consider to be some of the worst in the industry. HP’s telephone support is an absolutely miserable experience dealing with call centers in India where the people on the telephone barely speak English, and in some cases haven’t even understood the definition of basic words.
I think this gets to the heart of the matter. If in an attempt to drive costs lower you create a miserable experience for your customers, then they are eventually going to do business with your competition. This should be Business Common Sense 101. But evidently it was lost on top brass at HP. My guess is that with all their on-site help in their own offices they never called their own tech support like the rest of the public had to. Maybe if they had, then they would have had a clue as to how rotten it was.
At the end of the day, I really do not want to see HP broken up. I would like to see the company fix its problems and continue to be one of America’s great corporations.
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