Again, nothing to report.

I assume I won’t hear anything until Monday at the earliest, so I’ll resume posting to the HP Support Blog then – which will be Day 19 of a Next Day Support Case.

HP: Redefining Next Day, Redefining Support

Today’s news in the ongoing saga: No phone calls, no emails, no laptop, no customer service, no point in paying extra for Next Day support, nothing more to post today.

Happy two-week ‘anniversary’! Yep, it’s now two weeks since I first reported my faulty laptop for a next-day repair with HP, and it’s not fixed and not here.

Yesterday, I was sort of hopeful that the HP Support Blog would pull into the fixed-laptop station for the very last time, but it appears to be rumbling on, out of control. I contacted ICM Computers, HP’s subcontractors, this morning, as I’ve heard nothing since Friday. I was told that the machine had (as planned) been wiped and reinstalled from scratch, but (unsurprisingly) that hadn’t fixed the problem.

So in a somewhat surreal turn of events, they’ve decided to replace the system board and screen. They’ve done that twice before, you’ll remember, and it didn’t work. But clearly, they think it will this time. Problem is, they’ve not got either. So they’re awaitinf parts. My man from Warrington assures me that the repair has been escalated to a senior level. That’s nice, but it doesn’t seem to be making an awful lot of difference so far.

I’ll post an update tomorrow, though I’m not terribly hopeful that it’ll contain much. Remember that you can follow HP Support Blog posts specifically on this page, or with this RSS feed. Have fun.

Nothing much to report today, sadly. No laptop, no communication from HP or their subcontractors, nothing.

Frankly, I’m so fed up with them that I thought I’d just leave it for today. I’m sure if I’d called my new friend at Warrington that he would’ve chased it up for me – but I gave them a day’s grace instead.

Whether the laptop will turn up tomorrow is really anyone’s guess.

With all the negative stuff I’ve posted of late, I’m beginning to worry about Karma. So to balance it out, and titled in homage to The Guardian’s daily column, here’s some examples of really good customer service I’ve received recently.

Firstly, dabs.com. I’ve ordered from there quite a few times, and they’re always speedy and efficient. Last week, my order was somewhat complicated by some problems, but customer service people were on top of them in no time, with me waiting for less than a minute to talk to the most courteous people I’ve ever come across in the world of online retail. They’re great, their prices are great, and I thoroughly recommend them.

Secondly, Vodafone. I got a new phone from them a while back, and it’s broken. Not drastically broken, but it’s developed a couple of faults. I took it into the Vodafone shop, and they sent it away to be repaired for free, and on top of that gave me a free loan handset so I’m not left without. Unfortunately, they decided the phone was too difficult to repair – and so have agreed to supply me with a shiny new one, absolutely free, because it’s still under the manufacturer’s warranty. I’ve never experienced such good support from a retail outlet acting under a manufacturer warranty. Fantastic. In fact, I’ve been with Vodafone for over three years now, having tried various networks. I can honestly say that Vodafone have always given me an unbeatable deal, and on the odd occasions where things have gone wrong, they fix them quickly and efficiently. Easily the best mobile operator I’ve tried.

Thirdly, Tesco. I bought a couple of jumpers from there a few weeks back, priced at £14 each. They went through the till at £15 each. I queried this at the customer services desk, and was given both jumpers free by way of apology, and this too was processed very quickly and efficiently. What more could I ask for?

First Direct also provide consistenly excellent customer service, as do Smile. First Direct actually answer the phone as soon as you ring them, with no menus to navigate, and are always friendly. Smile have always done whatever I’ve asked of them with the minimum of fuss.

So there you go – there are good guys out there, and it’s probably true that I don’t post as much about good customer service as bad. Hopefully this does something to redress the balance.

Success, of a kind, today.

A brand spanking new engineer turned up this morning, on time. It took him a couple of hours to decide that he wasn’t convinced the hardware was the problem, but maybe Windows was objecting to the new (probably not faulty) system board. Unforunately, I was unable to furnish him with a copy of my Compaq Restore CD, so he’s taken the machine away to test his theory – he hopes it will be back early next week (presumably Tuesday, Day 13 – Monday is a UK Bank Holiday).

I’ve also had a call from the lovely HP man at Warrington, checking how things were progressing and telling me to get back in touch with him if the problems weren’t resolved.

So, all-in-all, some kind of result. The laptop has left the building, and won’t be back for some time, but hopefully will return fixed. Hopefully.

Look out on Tuesday for the next update.

This morning, I phoned ICM Computers (they failed to phone me), and was told that an engineer would probably not be coming out because the parts still hadn’t arrived from HP, but that they might arrive later on so they’d let me know. It looked like it was going to be another of ‘those’ days.

Then I decided to take matters into my own hands, and faxed every regional office of HP with the URI of this HP Support Blog. Suddenly, two people were on the phone, one on the landline and one on the mobile, with endless apologies and offers of help. Funny, that.

Both of these previously undiscovered HP people couldn’t have been more helpful, and both rang me back within half an hour telling me they were chasing up the case on my behalf. I then got calls both directly from HP and from ICM computers saying that the parts had ‘been passed on’ and that someone would be at my door at 11am tomorrow to finally fix the problem.

It’s nice to see that HP can actually operate effeciently – it’s just a shame it took this much to get there. I’ll let you know the results of tomorrow’s visit.

We’re one week into my Next Day HP Support call now. Yesterday, when my friendly engineer, left, he told me I’d be called this morning with an estimated time for him to come out and see me. I didn’t receive a call.

So lunchtime came, and I called them. The lovely person at the end of the phone said (after a considerable time on hold) that I would receive a call a little later.

At this point, I decide to inspect this HP approved engineer’s handiwork. Here’s what I found:

Yes, not only does my latop no longer start up, it’s also physically damaged.

At 4pm, I decide to call HP’s repair company again. I’m told that the parts aren’t in and an engineer won’t be coming out today. I’ve sat in all day waiting for nothing.

So, one week on, here’s where we are: HP have charged me over £100 for Next Day service which, one week later, has reduced a laptop that worked perfectly well with an external screen into a machine that is physically damaged and won’t start up. Thanks.

Just in case you think I’m being unreasonable about HP, you might want to do some further reading…

Maybe try this, this, or this.

Or maybe this.

Or this.

Or maybe this, this, or this.

Or this.

Or the story of someone who spent seven hours on the phone. To HP, of course.

Basically, they’re terrible, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Last week, I had reason to place a technical support call to HP. I’ve been blogging the ensuing experience, but due to the response to my last customer service post, I’ve been somewhat reluctant to publish. However, this has now reached the stage where I feel I should share my experiences.

I’ve created a special section of the site collecting the posts from this event together, and you can find that here. The first post, which explains all of the background to this experience, is here. And if you want to follow the story as it develops, there’s a dedicated RSS feed here.

I do hope you enjoy the experience more than me.

The technician did arrive this morning, as promised, with a replacement system board from the lovely people at HP. This was a good thing.

He spent the next two hours fitting my shiny new system board. Guess what? It didn’t work. The engineer very apologetically explained that the board sent by the lovely people at HP Support worked very well with my shiny new screen, but not with any of the other components in my laptop. So it had a nicely working screen, but wouldn’t start up.

He said he’d get in touch with HP Support and get them to send a new new system board, and a new hard drive (to replace the one that I had replaced a couple of months ago), “just in case” that was causing a problem.

He’s coming back tomorrow. So, as of tomorrow, my £138.65 next-working-day post-warranty support package has taken a minimum of five working days to actually produce a working laptop. That’s if tomorrow’s fix actually works, which would be a first. And, of course, this is all to fix a fault that occured during the warranty period.

Great service, only from HP.