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HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

arstechnica.com

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Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#141

Post by laurencerowe »

mey wrote: post #105
dehrmann wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One time, I needed this. I lost my phone with a physical SIM card and needed a replacement that day. Now I'm trying to remember the eSIM transfer flow to know if this is still an issue. But also, which MVNO should you go to? Carriers supposedly prioritize their own customers, so it feels a bit like running on spot instances.

Personally switched from VZW to Google Fi. It's on TMOs network. As you can imagine, when engaging with Google's support was hilarious when there was something I needed, but overall I don't miss Verizon and pay drastically less.

Is Google Fi particularly cheap? Their normal prices seem to start at $35/month for 30GB of data which is more than Verizon's Visible plans at $25/month. (The current 50% off offer on Google Fi does seem a good deal though.)

I ended up switching to Mobile-X since I'm on wifi so much I only use a few gigs of data a month. $2/month + $1.90/GB vs Google Fi's flexible plan of $20/month + $10/GB.

Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#142

Post by laurencerowe »

rootusrootus wrote: post #136
mey wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally switched from VZW to Google Fi. It's on TMOs network. As you can imagine, when engaging with Google's support was hilarious when there was something I needed, but overall I don't miss Verizon and pay drastically less.

For those of us who have crappy coverage with TMO, Verizon themselves offer a much better alternative to their postpaid service, called Visible. It's pretty hilarious how much better of an experience it is, and you are on the same network.

Coverage is very specific to your situation. I've had basically no coverage on Verizon in offices in the Bay Area where T-mobile worked fine while colleagues could only get Verizon at home.

Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#144

Post by tencentshill »

nitwit005 wrote: post #127
omcnoe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. You can see these exact same market dynamics at work in the mobile telco industry. Newer online only upstarts able to save on costs because they don’t operate a retail store you can visit to get help resetting your email password.

Those stores generally turn a profit eventually. A smaller company is just going to struggle to afford building out the stores and running ads to get people in the door.

Those startups eventually need legions of fools with which to easily part their money.

Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#145

Post by aboardRat4 »

drstewart wrote: post #84
lich_king wrote: post #51

I don't even think if singling out Dell is useful. Most US companies have long decided that providing good customer support is a drag on revenue and that you can get away with not providing it if the product is problem-free for 99% of your users. Have you tried calling UPS with an atypical problem? Bank of America? United? It's all the same, and the thing is, you don't find out until you actually have a problem with…

Wow, other countries sound like utopia! Can you tell me how to reach RyanAir by phone and how long it will take? How about Evri? China Southern?

China Southern is okay if you speak Chinese.

Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#146

Post by vladde »

my parking space company has a variant that if you call in, you can choose to be called back at a later point.

what they don't tell you is that they will call you back after 4pm.

you don't keep your place in the queue. the first time around i expected to be called back within an hour, and ended up expecting a call "any minute now" the whole day.

Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#147

Post by jerf »

philipallstar wrote: post #7
john_strinlai wrote: post #6

> the wait times aimed to “influence customers to increase their adoption of digital self-solve, as a faster way to address their support question. This involves inserting a message of high call volumes, to expect a delay in connecting to an agent and offering digital self-solve solutions as an alternative.” > Even if HP’s telephone support center wasn’t busy, callers would reportedly hear: We are experiencing longer…

I think it is a common practice, and another I think will be just a static set of times that they play the "higher than average call volumes" message, rather than anything dynamic. I think call centre stuff is incredibly basic, even though the domain isn't that complicated.

All call centers are actually located in Lake Wobegon, where all the call wait times are above average.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#Recurring_monolog... , for the probably many people who don't know the reference.)

Re: HP trialed mandatory 15-minute support call wait times (2025)

#149

Post by Spooky23 »

gib444 wrote: post #76
cjs_ac wrote: post #18

The danger in assuming that all your customers who request support are the sort of person who couldn't empty water from a boot with instructions written on the heel is that all of your competent customers will seek out your more respectful competitors, leaving you with only those who couldn't empty the boot, thus maximising your support costs.

For a few years now, I've found every support department has been trained to treat every single person as if they were a dumb 5 year old. The condescending replies from the outset, the 'clear your cookies' first line response to every bug report, the ignoring everything you say because you /must/ be wrong, the weird need to explain that they understand your feelings and frustrations (before even expressing any frustr…

I ran an enterprise help desk for a few years. I wasnt in the day to day, but would listen to calls sometimes. The reality is, dumb 5 year olds are often smarter.

We had a large (250k) workforce with a pretty wide variance in roles. We had probably about 100 people in the call center, although some of them did more interesting stuff too. It was a very good support organization with multichannel contact capabilities and really good, well paid staff.

Basically there was a barbell distribution with the lowest ranked people and highest ranked employees being the worst. (Think attorneys and other special IC and middle managers. Executives had dedicated support and didn’t use this method.) The most expensive 20% of users make 80% of the calls. The high ranking ones were dumber to deal with and took more time, the low ranking ones called too often for dumb reasons but resolved quickly.

I cannot imagine the hell on earth the general public could be.

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