But does Hewlett Packard actually have Customer Service?
in [Printers]
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From: Arthur Entlich on 23 Feb 2010 06:20 mickey wrote: > On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:17:31 -0800, DManzaluni > <dmanzaluni(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > >> On Feb 19, 5:27 pm, mickey <mice...(a)somewhere.com> wrote: >>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:47:09 -0800, Martin Trautmann >>> <t-use...(a)gmx.net> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:13:08 -0800 (PST), DManzaluni wrote: >>> >> Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to >>> anyone on >>> >> this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer >>> support? >>> >>> > No, stay away from HP. They do build some great products. But never >>> ever >>> > expect that they will fix anything which is broken for newer OS >>> > versions. >>> >>> > I had the same experience already with the first inkjet printer they >>> > built (HP Deskwriter) - the printer driver did consume every possible >>> > bit of available memory for its queue after the OS was upgraded. I >>> guess >>> > this was about MacOS 7.5 or 7.6. The problem was well known but never >>> > got fixed. >>> >>> > The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with >>> postscript / >>> > pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the >>> > support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect. >>> >>> > - Martin >>> >>> No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their >>> Achilles heel >> >> This was my question: Do they actually have any customer service or is >> it all handled by technical support refusing to assist when something >> goes so obviously wrong? Is there some trick to calling them? >> > ..... >> >> >> But not if they do have customer service. > > Like so many other Co's today, they farmed out their "customer Service" > years ago. Also they have been out of the medical business for more > than a decade. IMO today's HP is in name only. Bill, Dave, the > principles and company they created are long dead. > > Mickey Except for Walter Hewlett, who might not be an innovator engineer, but always struck me as a decent guy trying to maintain the company culture. Of course, Carly (now running for some Republican position or another) Fiorina, decided Walter was her enemy, and she helped to tank the company. Meanwhile Walter ended up at Agilent, a spin off from HP. While HP has recovered financially since Carly was "asked to leave" (fired) and given her golden parachute in 2005, the company culture, IMHO, has been destroyed. Like yourself, I see HP today like so many others, Memorex, Polaroid, to name a few, who are more a trademark and brand than a company inventing new ideas and products. I don't know that HP will ever be able to reclaim their place as a top American company with quality and integrity as their principle methods. In general, Carly has left a lot of bodies in her wake, Bell's Lucent Technologies is a mere memory, HP is walking wounded, and John McCain, much to my personal relief, fell on his sword with her help. She is now running for Senate, and I suspect (and hope) her curse continues to haunt her. She certainly has worsened the lives of enough workers and investors over the years. She gives the good talk, but never seemed to match it with her walk. Art
From: Arthur Entlich on 23 Feb 2010 06:47 DManzaluni wrote: > On Feb 21, 10:26 am, mickey <mice...(a)somewhere.com> wrote: >> On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:17:31 -0800, DManzaluni <dmanzal...(a)googlemail.com> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> On Feb 19, 5:27 pm, mickey <mice...(a)somewhere.com> wrote: >>>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:47:09 -0800, Martin Trautmann <t-use...(a)gmx.net> >>>> wrote: >>>>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:13:08 -0800 (PST), DManzaluni wrote: >>>>>> Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to anyone >>>> on >>>>>> this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer >>>> support? >>>>> No, stay away from HP. They do build some great products. But never >>>> ever >>>>> expect that they will fix anything which is broken for newer OS >>>>> versions. >>>>> I had the same experience already with the first inkjet printer they >>>>> built (HP Deskwriter) - the printer driver did consume every possible >>>>> bit of available memory for its queue after the OS was upgraded. I >>>> guess >>>>> this was about MacOS 7.5 or 7.6. The problem was well known but never >>>>> got fixed. >>>>> The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with >>>> postscript / >>>>> pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the >>>>> support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect. >>>>> - Martin >>>> No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their >>>> Achilles heel >>> This was my question: Do they actually have any customer service or is >>> it all handled by technical support refusing to assist when something >>> goes so obviously wrong? Is there some trick to calling them? >> ..... >> >>> But not if they do have customer service. >> Like so many other Co's today, they farmed out their "customer Service" >> years ago. Also they have been out of the medical business for more than >> a decade. IMO today's HP is in name only. Bill, Dave, the principles and >> company they created are long dead. >> >> Mickey > > Instead of sending me a printer which does actually work they have > offered to give me my money back: They DO seem quite keen that I dont > buy another HP printer. Should I take them up on it and be done with > them? Some years ago, I read an article, and if I am not mistaken HP was one of the companies mentioned which had gone to a new and popular philosophy regarding customer complains. Some "genius" consultants determined that certain clients were more costly than the income they generated for a company, in fact, they basically lost the company money. So, this consultant decided to train companies in how to recognize these customers who would never be satisfied and would just become a lost cause to them. The consultant suggested that rather than sinking money into customer service, and assorted other costs in trying to fix the problem, companies should do whatever they could to have the customer not only no longer use that companies products, but actually to use this to the company's advantage by leading the difficult client to the company's competitors, so they could also lose money. There is, however, one flaw in this logic. Often, the reason this client became "difficult" and ultimately costly to the company, is because the company made bad into worse, by not listening to the client, not correcting the defects in the product or service, and by becoming intransigent about not doing the right thing. This client often became not a burden to their competitors, but, if treated reasonably, a cheerleader for their competitor and a major detractor to the original company. Personally, HP (particularly their camera and scanner division) and Nikon, to a lesser extent, both of which I used to comfortably support and speak well of, left me annoyed and feeling disrespected. I moved to Canon and Polaroid at the time (before they went into bankruptcy) and found both companies a lot less arrogant. Epson is yet another company which I have been left quite disappointed in, which I used to be quite pleased with. Very few companies are black or white, but they do show different degrees of grey. I think when we speak with our wallets we tell these companies what our values are and what our expectations are. Since corporations are monolithic and non-human institutions, they often only respond to the bottom line, so that is often the only way to make your opinion known. Art Is there a Canon which does photos as well as the HPs at the > moment please? I was looking into it a few years ago but found that > the Canons didnt have enough colours in their (admittedly separate and > less expensive) cartridges to do photos which were as good as the best > of the HPs with their plethora of colours. Now I find that printing > seems to have moved on a bit and the printer companies seem to make do > with fewer colours along possibly with a photo black. > Canon had the right idea because in theory, if the dot size is small enough, only 4 colors are really required. More colors lead to more ink use and waste, and that is probably as much or more the driver than any possible improvement to the image. > Is this game not worth the candle? Is this a company which empahsises > all-in-ones now where the individual parts dont do the job as well as > (for example) having a separate scanner, and printer? > > Back then, Canon was pretty successfully playing catch up on photo > quality with HP still ahead. Has time moved on and Canon surpassed HP > and is HP concentrating their supposed talents elsewhere? Canon spent a fortune on redesigning their heads and printer mechanics, and did a good job of it. They aren't great for inks which aren't dye colorant based, still. They do have a few pigment colorant inkset, however. When the heads do fail, the cost is not cheap to replace them. Art
From: mickey on 23 Feb 2010 10:58 On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:20:26 -0800, Arthur Entlich <e-printerhelp(a)mvps.org> wrote: > > mickey wrote: >> On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:17:31 -0800, DManzaluni >> <dmanzaluni(a)googlemail.com> wrote: >> >>> On Feb 19, 5:27 pm, mickey <mice...(a)somewhere.com> wrote: >>>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:47:09 -0800, Martin Trautmann >>>> <t-use...(a)gmx.net> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> > On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:13:08 -0800 (PST), DManzaluni wrote: >>>> >> Does anyone know if it is possible to actually get though to >>>> anyone on >>>> >> this sort of problem or have they discontinued their customer >>>> support? >>>> >>>> > No, stay away from HP. They do build some great products. But never >>>> ever >>>> > expect that they will fix anything which is broken for newer OS >>>> > versions. >>>> >>>> > I had the same experience already with the first inkjet printer they >>>> > built (HP Deskwriter) - the printer driver did consume every >>>> possible >>>> > bit of available memory for its queue after the OS was upgraded. I >>>> guess >>>> > this was about MacOS 7.5 or 7.6. The problem was well known but >>>> never >>>> > got fixed. >>>> >>>> > The only HP printers to recommend are network printers with >>>> postscript / >>>> > pcl - the risk of incompatibility is much lower then, even if the >>>> > support of grayscale or images may be less than perfect. >>>> >>>> > - Martin >>>> >>>> No disagreement with HP's customer service, it has always been their >>>> Achilles heel >>> >>> This was my question: Do they actually have any customer service or is >>> it all handled by technical support refusing to assist when something >>> goes so obviously wrong? Is there some trick to calling them? >>> >> ..... >>> >>> >>> But not if they do have customer service. >> Like so many other Co's today, they farmed out their "customer >> Service" years ago. Also they have been out of the medical business >> for more than a decade. IMO today's HP is in name only. Bill, Dave, >> the principles and company they created are long dead. >> Mickey > > > Except for Walter Hewlett, who might not be an innovator engineer, but > always struck me as a decent guy trying to maintain the company culture. > Of course, Carly (now running for some Republican position or another) > Fiorina, decided Walter was her enemy, and she helped to tank the > company. Meanwhile Walter ended up at Agilent, a spin off from HP. While > HP has recovered financially since Carly was "asked to leave" (fired) > and given her golden parachute in 2005, the company culture, IMHO, has > been destroyed. Like yourself, I see HP today like so many others, > Memorex, Polaroid, to name a few, who are more a trademark and brand > than a company inventing new ideas and products. > > I don't know that HP will ever be able to reclaim their place as a top > American company with quality and integrity as their principle methods. > > In general, Carly has left a lot of bodies in her wake, Bell's Lucent > Technologies is a mere memory, HP is walking wounded, and John McCain, > much to my personal relief, fell on his sword with her help. She is now > running for Senate, and I suspect (and hope) her curse continues to > haunt her. She certainly has worsened the lives of enough workers and > investors over the years. She gives the good talk, but never seemed to > match it with her walk. > > Art You're being far too kind to Carly. Bill & Dave would never except the company as being a me-too operation but today, that is more than acceptable if it helps the bottom line. IMO it would be hard to find an employee that would take much pride in working for HP today. Many thousands of employees and former employees have lot many millions of $$$ due to the management by Carly and now the current CEO. A large portions of the fringe benefit package that had been in place for many years has all been taken away. It is a sad day that the company that once was one of the best manages companies in the country and who recognized their employees as one of their best assets to the poor position they find themselves today. I doubt you could find HP's name listed in the top 100 best managed companies and another survey of best company to work for. When I was there they always were found in the top 2-3. Mickey
From: William R. Walsh on 23 Feb 2010 12:45 Hi! > Bill, Dave, the principles and company they created are long > dead. Wouldn't it be more correct to say that Bill and Dave's company is now known as "Agilent"? I'm not sure how much of a role Bill and Dave still had in the business by the time HP diversified into computers and printers. William
From: DManzaluni on 26 Feb 2010 19:06
OK I get the message, dump Hewlett Packard, issue in Small Claims for the trouble they have caused and switch manufacturer Problem is, what on earth to buy instead? The Canon PIXMA IP4700 (and similar Lexmark which has only half the DPI) only get very lukewarm reviews everywhere in sight while the 7560 (which apparently only PRETENDS to be wireless) is seem by the reviewers as producing photos of "near professional quality" compared with pharmacy-produced photos. It seems to be the only one which isnt described as 'great for a budget printer' Has any site done any genuine comparative reviews of the photo quality of the best printers out there? I dont need larger format than 8x10 and I emphatically dont want yet another all-in-one to go with my humongous Canon ImageClass 8180c which dominates my office so the Kodak seems to be out. Or is there now really no difference in picture quality between all these budget printers and supposedly 'professional' ones? |