Right as rainy

If you want someone or something to ruin your day in 5 minutes flat, there are a few ways. Try to phone Telkom. Or go to the Licensing Department. The taxman is always an entertaining choice. Oh, been there done that? Well, here’s a new approach. Why don’t you try HP South Africa for size? I did this morning – and I still wish I hadn’t.

Not only have their consultants a rather ‘flexible’ idea of customer support – one time I tried to get a repair status update and was passed on through nine people before I lost my temper – if you want to, the fun starts before you even speak to someone.

Take their menu system. It asks you to choose from a number of options by pressing the according key on your phone. I was distracted for a moment and didn’t catch all the options, so I waited for the system to give me a chance to repeat them or be put through to an operator (as most systems do). Instead it went like this:

“Please note that you haven’t made a selection. Your call will now be disconnected.”

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WTH??? ¹

Whoever did this at HP – is that your idea of customer service? Someone didn’t catch all the options on first try, for whatever reason there may be (background noise? static? bad connection?), so instead of helping them on their way, you just cut them off? Heck, I am really glad my company doesn’t buy PCs from you, this way I only have to deal with you guys once every few weeks.

Believe it or not, I am still shaking my head about this one…