Customer service.
How many times have you had to call customer service. For me it seems like I have to call customer service to three maybe four times a year usually buy the same products. Now I have a DIRECTV at home and several HP products, And usually I am the one that makes all the phone calls. What prompted me to write this article is because I have children like some of you who are having to use computers chrome books, and iPads to learn remotely. And unfortunately as we all know with technology things happen and it forces you to have to deal with customer service of a particular product. In this case, not to pick on Hewlett-Packard, but my older son is using a HP he had broken his other chrome book, and school starts in less than week.
I don’t mind making the phone calls I just sometimes hate having to deal with customer services, because when you navigate websites sometimes it just seems like it makes you are running around in circles. And a lot of times the options aren’t usually what you need. Now the best way that I can impart is, 1) save the customer service number so that you can always reference it and call. In the past I have not done that and find myself going around in circles trying to find the number.
Two, if you have children you will most certainly have or will be calling customer service about a product that your children use. Especially, during this time when COVID-19 is forcing us to quarantine and forcing our children to learn remotely.
There are probably some steps you could probably take as precursors to preventing any calls to customer service. For example, First step might seem a bit draconian and require you to be more proactive. You will have to monitor your kids’ computer use, plug it in when they are done, and kept in a safe place until they need it again. Like most married couples, my wife and I are fortunate to still be working. Let’s be realistic, this is a lot of work. My oldest son is 14 year old, and a little more responsible than when he was a year ago. Still, there are plenty of times when he is not as careful as he should be about taking care of his electronics. Maybe we should make him pay for it, which are making him do in small installments. Yet, this still did not prevent his Chromebook from breaking. Now, to be fair it could be bad hardware, but I know better. The wire from for his Chromebook would be plugged into an outlet across the room while he sits on the couch in his room. I when my wife or I call him, I have seen him trip over the the wires, hence his Chromebook now will not charge.
So, now I have to set up a conference call with my son and the HP customer service. So, I am (along with my son), navigating through the myriad of options just so I can talk to the correct agent.
callwe got to a live human being asked me and then my son questions. He says he will put us on hold. Of course, five minutes of silence go by before I realize, the agent hung up on us. So my second attempt was the annoying on, almost ten to fifteen minutes of waiting after punching in all the options I needed to get to a human being. Finally, I get to a human being but not before I my son and I had to listen to over and over about texting me links to get help from some virtual assistant. This person asked some precursory questions and back on hold we went. The entire second call from start till finish was 37 minutes. During this time, since I was not there, he had my son perform some troubleshooting steps, only to not saying ok, something is wrong and we will send out a box via FedEx. Now, I am not saying that I have bad luck with getting help. I have had great and positive experience, I got off the phone and had a nice, warm and fuzzy feeling all over.
The take away from all this is, dealing with customer service and not HP in particular, was like getting your tooth pulled out, while watching the paint dry.
One, have patience, remember you are the X number of person that this person has had to deal with. Probably got chewed out by a frustrated customer, whose electronic issue was probably user error.
Two, if it is an issue caused by your children. This is something I am still learning even after three kids is, teaching them to respect their belongings especially expensive electronics. Electronics that they rely on for school.
Lucky for my wife and I, my son has a spare Chromebook with some missing keys, but still enough to get him through until his new Chromebook gets shipped out and returned.
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