Buy an Elite HP PC, Get Your Own Support Staffer

jfruh writes "HP reversed its decision to spin off its PC business, but it's still left with the question of how to make money in a commodity business selling standard-issue machines manufactured overseas. One idea they're contemplating: improved customer service. If you buy an HP 'Elite' PC and have problems, you won't have to phone into a tech support call center where an entry-level drone reads off a script and tells you to reboot the machine; you'll have access to a specific support tech who will work with you as long as you own the computer."

Comments

Start with basic customer service first.

[jhoegl]

Seriously HP, starting with better basic Customer support would gain you more market share.
If Dell can figure it out, so can you.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[x1r8a3k]

HP has fantastic Customer Service
...if you buy a support plan.

If this is essentially bundling a service plan into the purchase cost, I'd buy one.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[tripleevenfall]

Market share it may gain them, but profitability it will not.

The PC market has segmented in such a way that most people accurately judge PC clones as being equivalent and simply compare specs to price.

If HP comes into the market with "elite"-priced PCs, the American consumer will do the same thing they have done with tablets that didn't offer cost savings - they'll say "For that price I can get an iphone/ipad/imac/macbook". Why pay more for technical support, which you have to spend time and frustration using, when you can just buy something that (consumer perception says) doesn't need technical support?

This strategy is DOA.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[multiben]

So true. My father in law recently bought an HP. The hard drive subsequently went bung and he spent hours of pain on the phone being passed around the globe until they eventually agreed to send him a new hard drive, but he would need to install it himself. The drive turned up and it was half the capacity of the original. Since it was urgent he got me to install it anyway and then contacted HP to complain about the small than expected drive. They said they would send another drive out. They didn't. He called them back. They said sorry and they would send it straight away. Still nothing. Eventually after much yelling at call centre operators they did send the correct drive, but what a pain.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[ColdWetDog]

What if the customer service positions were filled with sales oriented people? It would be an oppurtunity to have conversations about other products. Cross selling extended warranties, insurance packages, games or pc peripherals...

CUSTOMER: My PC isn't working well.
SALES/SUPPORT DRONE: Great! Would you like to buy a new one!

Somehow, I just don't think support calls are great 'sales moments'.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[hairyfeet]

Because as Apple has learned perception and looks matter? As someone who sells and services to normal folks 6 days a week i can tell you i can take frankly 5 year old parts and double my money simply by slapping them in a $20 fancy case from geeks. Anything with a racing stripe of pretty lights catches the eye and makes people think speed so they are more likely to buy. While I of course don't shortchange folks like that I do put any new build in a flashy case simply because it makes them sell MUCH quicker if there is some bling bling so it really wouldn't be hard for HP to make an "Elite PC" line with some flash and get in the consumers.

That said the problem is gonna be laptops as there is only so much bling you can put on one of those and most folks only care about how it "feels' instead of how it looks. While i will resell frankly any brand I get a good deal on i prefer the Asus lines as to me they just "feel" nicer and at least on the ones I've used seem to be better about heat than HP and Dell. Maybe if HP would quit trying to beat Apple in the thin dept and instead work on having a nice feel with good battery life maybe they can upsell there too, maybe offer more models where you can change out the DVD for an extra battery? Because the biggest complaint I hear from folks is there never is such a thing as too much battery life, its one of the reasons i ended up selling my full size for an Asus EEE 1215B netbook, i went from 3 and a half hours to 6 watching 720p video and from 4 and a half to over 7 for surfing. To me that was worth giving up the burner and I bet a lot of folks would agree, instead of having the burner they should include a USB DVD and add an extra battery in the DVD slot. Easy way to upsell is to be able to brag that while the other guy gets 4 hours on a battery you get 8.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[PCM2]

While I of course don't shortchange folks like that I do put any new build in a flashy case simply because it makes them sell MUCH quicker if there is some bling bling so it really wouldn't be hard for HP to make an "Elite PC" line with some flash and get in the consumers.

Not 1337 PCs. Elite PCs.

"Elite" is a brand name HP already uses for desktop PCs and notebooks for businesses. They're not all that flashy.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[EdIII]

This strategy is DOA.

Not entirely. It will not be as profitable, but it could get a very large chunk of a specific market share.

Senior citizens and complete and total morons.

I *know* some of these people. Very smart people otherwise (except for the real morons), but totally hopeless with computers. Even the most basic of diagnostic tasks past "is the power cord plugged in" can fluster them and take 15 minutes to get past on the phone.

Having somebody they can always talk to by name to help them out will be valuable in their eyes. It will sell in that specific market.

P.S - Anybody that reads this that thinks you know me..... no I was not talking about you. At all. I swear.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[smellotron]

Somehow, I just don't think support calls are great 'sales moments'.

I can think of a few that might work on the average joe:

My wireless keeps disconnecting. You're probably just getting reduced signal because of walls and nearby interference. Buy this wireless range extender and/or booster antenna! My laptop is slow in the evenings when the TV is on. It's probably getting hot on your lap. Buy this ventilated lap desk with a mini fan! My keyboard is covered in beer! Sorry, spills are not covered by the warranty. Here's the model number for the replacement keyboard. Buy a spill-proof cover while you're at it! Also, have you seen this nifty new bluetooth mouse?

Etc.

Re:Start with basic customer service first.

[jp10558]

I'm sorry, but what the hell do you do to your laptops? The only time I've seen anyone wear out a Lenovo laptop was by dropping it repeatably from 4 feet + up on the corner. And this actually only broke a bit of plastic off the back corner and killed the HD. Warranty replaced the HD and palm rest / touch-pad and it was working again.

I mean, we did have the person who spilled acetone on the keyboard and melted it - also replaced. Have you called them for replacement parts / mail in service?

We have numerous (100+ laptops) used for scientists and technicians who work them hard and have found the people who break the Thinkpads also break the Macbooks and about as fast.

I guess your mileage did vary, but hell - are you trying to break it with hammers or something?

Or..

[Anonymous Coward]

until they leave the company. Or go on holiday. Or Maternity leave. Or sick. Or get promoted.

Dear HP

[Dyinobal]

Look HP I get it, Chinese labor is cheap, and there are a lot of Chinese people to spare but I just don't see how this is feasible. Plus just imagine the shipping and handling? Plus where is it going to sleep?

I get it you don't want to seem behind on the times with apple using cheap drones to assemble all it's products but including one with each PC bought might be pushing it.

Re:Dear HP

[ColdWetDog]

Who cares if it is a hot/cute Chinese gal. ;)

Your wife.... The computer wouldn't be the only thing rebooted.

One Question

[stevenfuzz]

What the hell is a PC?

Re:One Question

[Quiet_Desperation]

A term long accepted by the street to mean a personal computer running some variant of the Windows operating system.

Now and then someone will think it is clever to ask "Derp, are they not all personal computers? Derp!" in an attempt to sound like, I don't know, some sort of hipster or cool kid something... who the fuck can tell?

Anyway, I hope this helps.

Re:One Question

[themightythor]

It obviously "Player Character".

Re:One Question

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Now and then someone will think it is clever to ask "Derp, are they not all personal computers? Derp!" in an attempt to sound like, I don't know, some sort of hipster or cool kid something... who the fuck can tell?

[applause] That line has long been one of the most irritating bits of pseudo-cleverness found in tech discussions, and it should be met with mockery and scorn at every opportunity.

Re:One Question

[hairyfeet]

Actually it just shows how out of touch geeks are with the public, as someone who has been making his living serving that public since before there even WAS a Windows let me bust some myths okay?

1.-A tablet is NOT a PC, it is in fact not even considered a computer of ANY sort by the masses. its a "screen that plays videos and angry birds" and they look on it as a personal computer about as much as their wristwatch or ATM.

2.-A phone is NOT a personal computer, or even has an OS, again see 1 only add "helps me find stuff and Googles"

3.-The reason ARM netbooks never had a chance is because there is no such thing as a netbook to the masses, its a "baby laptop and baby laptops should do everything a big laptop does only slower, because a baby is smaller than a grown up"

I hope i have cleared up some common myths held by geeks about what is an isn't a PC. to the public the ONLY thing that is a PC is a computer that runs Windows and supports ALL their old programs, be it in desktop or laptop form. That is one of the reasons Windows tablets is DOA, both in X86 and ARM, as it tries to break common perception. If its a tablet its supposed to work like a big phone, if its got Windows its supposed to have a keyboard and a mouse or trackpad. people don't like things that go against perceptions, see the open hostility to Win 8 as an example as i've shown it to over 200 customers and within seconds they are actively hating the thing, its just too alien.

Re:One Question

[mlts]

For me, most are interchangeable except for one thing: Business level machines will have an onboard TPM chipset. With Windows, this is important because I can enable that, flip on BitLocker (saving off the recovery key somewhere safe but secure), and the machine is decently secure. Someone yanking out the HDD will not be able to access data, nor would a MBR compromise yield access to an attacker next boot. Add a PIN to that, and that provides brute force resistance (TPMs add an exponentially increasing delay after 3-4 wrong guesses.)

For some, this wouldn't matter at all, but if one has to run Windows, BitLocker + TPM is probably the easiest set/forget encryption there is for the platform.

Nightmare

[mvar]

Anyone who has had a little help-desk experience can already imagine the horrors of having to deal with a specific annoying customer every fucking time he calls for help

Re:Nightmare

[Raistlin77]

Anyone who has had a little experience with a small company can already imagine the horrors of having to deal with a specific annoying support rep every fucking time they call for help.

Works both ways.

Meet the new drone, same as the old drone.

[Sponge Bath]

Whoever is assigned as your support tech will still be under the same policies meant to minimize costs to HP, that means limited training and script reading. Given the turnover in tech support, even an "assigned" drone will likely be some random person by the time you need help. This sounds more like marketing than an actual change in policy.

Re:Meet the new drone, same as the old drone.

[c]

> Given the turnover in tech support, even an "assigned" drone will likely be
> some random person by the time you need help.

Call centers already assign their employees with fictional names and locations. All they need to do is slap that information in a database for the next representative to use. Unless there's a major difference in accent or sex, it's not like most people would even notice a difference.

Re:What is so good about this?

[Lunix Nutcase]

They assign you someone else?

*blink* Eh?

[Quiet_Desperation]

How does (Score:0, Funny) even exist? I'm calling HP tech support to find out.

Re:*blink* Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does (Score:0, Funny) even exist? I'm calling HP tech support to find out.

-1 Overratted and +1 Underrated only change the score and not the status.

Re:*blink* Eh?

[hairyfeet]

Well if its anything like Dell tech support you may be on the phone for awhile pal.

Re:*blink* Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Dells home grade tech support. Anyone who has purchased Dell's business line of products such as workstations/servers knows you get someone in the USA on the phone that is usually very knowledgeable.

Re:*blink* Eh?

[sortius_nod]

I've been supporting Dell business machines for about 10 years, and I concur, never had to wait with business support (even basic tier business support). Conversely, HP's business support is total shite. Even with a carepack you get phone queues and delays of days (HP's idea of "24hrs response time" is a phone call, not a visit).

I have a feeling that this will be a painful loss for HP, nothing more.

Re:*blink* Eh?

[DigiShaman]

Too bad the Symantec Backup Exec support staff isn't US based too. Every time I've had to call them for any reason at all, it's always someone from India that answered the phone. Every fucking time!

It's bad enough to have a server crash all while corrupting the RAID volume with it. It's even worse when you need help restoring data with support on the other end of the line you can barely understand. In another dimension and time, this would have been hilarious. Unfortunately, the joke is on me.

Screw political correctness. The first company that bases an advertisement bashing their competitor for using outsourced tech support in India will be extremely successful as it will resonate with the average American. The ability to understand them is frustrating!

Re:*blink* Eh?

[The Archon V2.0]

You mean Dells home grade tech support. Anyone who has purchased Dell's business line of products such as workstations/servers knows you get someone in the USA on the phone that is usually very knowledgeable.

Better than Asus. I was dragged to a meeting with a pair of their pitchmen and got to watch a delightful scene in which someone from our sales department waited for them to mention servers and then tore them apart with a story of a client whose server went tits-up in under a month and when he called about it was told "We're sorry, the server support department isn't accepting calls right now." I quite enjoyed watching the Asus pitchmen stumbling to try pimp their warranty assistance and not understanding that "Someone will e-mail you the next business day." is not an acceptable response for a server failure.

Now, I could question why someone bought (and our sales guy sold) a product with such dismal yet 'acceptable' performance, but I didn't care. The show did my spleen too much good.

Re:*blink* Eh?

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...you might want to look up the "Peggy commercials' as a company has already done that, they just changed India to Russia so they could use white people and not appear racist. funny enough the one thing I miss about working at a consulting firm in the state capital is we had an Indian gal whose job was pretty much cursing at tech support in Hindi. I use to love to watch her get worked up "NO! You did NOT just tell me to reboot! I have 3 degrees and am a professional in IT you DO NOT give ME that reboot crap!" which would always be followed by a long string of Hindi which i'm sure was quite colorful.

Wow, so much hate!

[PCM2]

I'm surprised at all the negativity. This sounds like basically the same thing as when I worked IT and I had my own rep at the mail-order houses like CDW and PC Warehouse. In practice, did it make a damn bit of difference to me whether my official rep took my order or somebody else did? Nope, not really. All my info, including discounts, etc., was in the computer. But it was nice to have a number to call and a specific person with whom I could leave a message if need be, and to be able to say stuff like, "I need more of those things I got on Friday, but listen, one of them already broke" -- without having to walk through some script with an anonymous sales rep. It was just that slight bit more of a human interaction that made the whole transaction a little bit more pleasant, even though I was intellectually aware that it probably wasn't making what I needed to do much easier by any measurable amount.

Re:What is so good about this?

[L3370]

Think of it as an account representative. Similar service level of someone like your financial advisor, tax man, or sales rep for your business--but of course providing an IT support service. Like account reps, I'm sure they could have other reps fill in for vacations/emergencies

If they DO go this route, you could expect the positions to be filled with sales/customer service oriented mindsets as well as basic computer skills. You could have a personable rep who is genuinely interested in you, because its profitable for them. It could also be another avenue for cross selling--driving company profits up.

That is assuming they could do this correctly.

I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

[ 100th call that day, only a few moment from the last one... ]
Customer: "yeah, hi again, so errm, the computer still doesn't seem happy. I don't think it liked the way you said goodbye to it last time. Say it again, but this time with feeling - it is listening..."

Tech: places noose around neck, loads into office paper shredder and presses go...

Do a Siri type app

[asphaltcowboy]

Why do you need a person when you could call into a app that would lead you down the same path as a human?

Re:Or....

[lightknight]

Laptops.

When it becomes possible to pick and choose laptop parts the way you do desktops / servers, PC manufacturers are doomed.

Why? Because the ability for a local IT guy to build you exactly what you need / want greatly supersedes the powers of the market research guys at the big corps.
Warranty and tech support is the only hold-up at that point.

If the people who make laptop motherboards / cases / video cards would standardize on a layout / form factor, we'd be doing it already.

Silence of the Support Guy

[SuperKendall]

"It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it cleans the registry again".

*Shudder*