CALL TO HP SUPPORT

At 8:55 a.m. I placed a call to HP Support to request warranty service on my HP Pavilion dv9000. This should have been a 5-minute conversation with someone I could understand. The call was completed at 9:30.

I mean, here I am – Ms. Consumer, having spent good dollars on this item for which I had waited for years – having an obsessive but gratifying relationship with said item – now discovering, after having spent hours in frustration setting it up (remember “the laptop from hell”), that it was probably a lemon from the beginning. I’m upset to begin with – and then I’m made to identify myself and my product with names and numbers at every level of the call.

There were three levels. It began with the automated super-cordial female voice asking certain questions so that she could properly direct my call. At least I could understand her. “Technical support,” I called into the phone, which resulted – after a brief wait – in the opportunity to speak with a live individual whose native language was obviously Spanish. She understood me just fine, but I had difficulties with her Spanish accent. No matter – we muddled through. A lot of the call was holding in silence anyway. She gave me a service number and told me she would transfer my call to the Pavilion Department. “Do not hang up from this call,” she tells me pointedly. “Oh-oh!” I think.

On to the next layer – and again I prayed that I could understand. Maybe I would get an American-speaking male. But no – another female whose American was even more clipped and accented than the previous “assistant.” Again, I had to provide all my personal info as well as the number provided to me in the previous conversation. She asked me to switch to another phone because she was “getting a lot of static on the line.” (I can barely understand her and she asks me to switch to another phone!) "What's wrong with your laptop?" she asked, and I was glad to be able to say the laptop had been diagnosed by a Staples tech who advised me my only recourse was to call HP Support. It probably saved at least 15 frustrating minutes of phone time. In the end I was provided with yet another number, instructions for returning the laptop to HP for service, website address for tracking the order, etc.

“When I finish with this call,” I announced to Mike, “I will be through for the day.” Just to reassure myself that I really can use the phone, I called my hairdresser for an appointment. It was good to talk to her. KW