HP Inc today abruptly ditched the mandatory 15-minute wait time that it imposed on customers dialling up its telephone-based support team due to “initial feedback.”
As The Register exclusively revealed yesterday, HP introduced the minimum time that PC and print users would need to wait before they spoke to a human being. This was to lean on customers to use online alternatives such as social channels or live chat.
This came into force for folks phoning up the call center in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and Italy on February 18. It went down like a lead balloon internally at HP, with some staff on the front line unhappy that they were having to deal with a decision taken by management, who didn’t have to directly interact with customers left hanging on the telephone… for at least 15 minutes.
Don’t blame the support reps. Blame their employer.
It’s not a question of blame. It does not matter to me whether gaslighting is imposed upon representatives as a method of providing “support” or whether the representatives are coming up with it themselves. Either way, the result is the same: the support experience is almost universally horrid (see my other comment on a different branch of this thread), and I see no reason to trust the representatives, and even less reason to trust their employers.