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From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: HP Customer Support...
Message-ID: <203@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 27 Nov 89 18:04:27 GMT
References: <4310071@hpindda.HP.COM>
Reply-To: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Organization: Intuitive Systems, Mountain View, CA: +011 (415) 966-1151
Lines: 90

Aaron Schuman, from HP's Information Networks Division, recently commented
here in this forum that:

> HP has an excellent service department with procedures to ensure that every
> customer gets helped.  There is a phone-in consultation service, a set of
> regional response centers, and factory on-line support.  Every defect report
> and enhancement request gets catalogued and assigned to an owner.  Employees
> are evaluated on the basis of how effectively we resolve service requests.

While this might well be the company line, it is *not* the reality of
the situation.  In fact, it's a wonder to me how HP can be rated so 
highly on customer support, frankly.  I think that instead of showing that
HP does it right, it demonstrates that everyone else does it even more
poorly...

When I was an employee of HP, for example, I encountered literally hundreds
of bugs, quirks, documentation errors, invalid behaviours, &c &c while 
pushing the edges of the HP-UX operating system.  Each time I encountered
one I submitted a defect via the internal Defect Tracking System like a
good employee concerned with the quality of the end product.  NONE of them
were ever resolved, and in fact it was almost traditional that "the owner"
of the defect would assign it to someone else at least two or three times
(each assignment having about a 5-6 week time lapse) and then it would 
just vanish, or be returned "unable to duplicate" a year or two later.

Classic stories are those of my friends at HP Labs who submitted bugs in
1984 or 1985 and have only recently received a "bug closing report" that
simply states "obsoleted by new release" when, ironically enough, they
can go and duplicate the same bug in the most current OS release!

Having gone from a position where I submitted bugs into the great black
hole of HP customer support to where I work with HP customers, I can assure
you that it is no better for people that are paying money.  Even the so-called
show stopper bugs don't mean that HP immediately mobilizes all their forces
and solves it ASAP.  I have heard of some sites that have been without use of
their machines for many months while waiting for their SE, customer support
engineer, assigned engineer, etc to actually FIX the problem and send them a
patch or workaround.

One of the problems that HP has with their customer support methodology,
by the way, is that they want to keep the information on their defects as
private as possible, so instead of doing something like, say, posting the
workaround patch to the "-O" compiler optimization bug that everyone has
been clamouring about for weeks here on the net, they simply have their SE's
deliver the patch to those customers that ASK THE SE specifically about it
(and actually its a further subset yet; you have to luck out and hit the SE
that knows the HP-UX product line sufficiently well to be aware of the problem
and the patch...)

It would be an interesting experiment for HP to sponsor the creation of a new
newsgroup "comp.sys.hp.patches" (or a mailing list, BBS, or whatever) and then
use that forum for the dissemination of SSB's, the infamous software status
bulletins where theoretically us HP-UX customers are informed of problems
and solutions in the current release of the operating system.

Unfortunately, the need for this sort of thing is increasing over time, not
decreasing; while the core HP-UX product might be getting more and more 
solid, the operating system environment as a whole is getting much more 
complex and larger than originally, and therefore, not surprisingly, the
number of defects will increase as the size and complexity of the product
increase too (I feel like quoting Tom Peters here, but can't think of anything
appropriate.  Sorry :-).

The most depressing thing to me is that HP is indeed one of the top companies
in the computer industry when it comes to customer support!  Further, in my
opinion (and in the opinion of many others) HP makes the most solid and 
reliable computer equipment in the industry too, including their OS and
applications.

It's just "being best" isn't good enough.  It's a fast moving world out
there and if AT&T can promise guaranteed 30 minute turnaround on problem
reports called in, why can't HP promise less than 2 weeks? (*)

				From the trenches,
		
						-- Dave Taylor

(*) Actually, HP policy is a return call within 2 hours of the initial
    problem report arriving at the Customer Support Center(s), but I
    recall that the average time to resolve a problem is quite a bit
    longer than the two hours...and when you consider the number of 
    people that the customer probably has to get through (including 
    their FE, SE, customer support, who then has to track down and
    find the responsible engineer who has to fit it into their own
    busy schedule), well, two weeks is probably generous...

Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California

taylor@limbo.intuitive.com    or   {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor