I just had to buy a new laptop computer. In the past I’ve had ones from Dell, IBM, HP, Toshiba, and other now-forgotten brands. The most recent is an HP my wife bought. I have a variety of standard issues with it (she chose an extra-wide screen, the machine gets awfully hot if you actually put it in your lap, both the battery and the Windows installation are now so old as to barely function). But I also was greatly annoyed when I attempted to deal with HP’s support organization. Not that I love Dell or IBM support, but my experience with HP was a whole other level of bad.
So when I looked around and found another person who hates HP’s support, I found his long, tortured story to be credible. He even offered a theory as to the root of the problem (emphasis mine):
folks, please think hard before dealing with HP. Their biggest problem is that nothing is linked to anything. You customer ID is not linked to your orders or any history. Even when it’s linked it can only be viewed by certain people and not the others. It’s such a mess that I really wonder how they’re even able to stay in business. Like I mentioned before, I’m a computer programmer myself and it just pains me to see this kind of mess. I’m not exaggerating when I’m telling you that I must’ve spent close to 24 hours with them on the phone altogether.
Pretty ironic, given that HP has a huge professional services business, at least part of which purports to help customers integrate their silos of automation …
