Sunday, September 28, 2008
HP Screws the Pooch. Royally
Here’s the background. We have several HP DL320G5p servers that we use as dedicated servers for our customers. All these HP servers have active, 4 hour onsite response, 24x7, 3 year Care Pack Extended Service Agreements in place.
One of the machines has a fan failure. The ILO management card sees this, and shuts down the OS as a protective measure. That’s uncool on a production machine. I call 1-800-HP-INVENT to start the support process at 2:40pm on Saturday. The tech runs me through a couple of diagnostic procedures, verifies the replacement part number, and sets it up for onsite delivery. The call was finished by 3pm.
Now, about geography. My home is an hour and a half drive from our Datacenter in Orlando. HP has parts depots all over the place, including Orlando. In fact, the Orlando Depot is about 10 miles away from the datacenter. So, I fully expected that the part would be there when I arrived at 5:30.
No part. No call from HP either. So, I killed the time by updating some outstanding helpdesk tickets.
6:40 rolls around, so I call in again to 1-800-HP-INVENT to check the status of the ticket. After all they still have time. I spend 45 minutes on hold only to told that the part is on backorder. What the hell? I’m given a different 1-800 number to call.
Another 30 minutes on hold, and they tell me that the earliest ETA for the part is Tuesday morning, making it a 50-some odd hour Care Pack. That’s unacceptable. I asked for a supervisor. They give me the same line. Up another level we go.
“Yes, I’m the customer. I’m the guy who authorizes the purchase of HP equipment and warranties. And you’ve already blown your Service Level Agreement by 3 hours.”
“Oh, shit.”
At this point, I don’t care if they have to charter a damned Gulfstream to get the part to me. (I’ve seen IBM do this once. My dad used to work for IBM’s Printing systems Division, and Publix was one of the accounts he serviced. No shit, they chartered a Learjet to fly in a spring for a printer).
They’ll call me back. At 9pm I said screw it, and started driving home. Halfway home, and I get a call from HP. They’ve setup a flight for the part, and it will be in Orlando at 5:25pm, on Sunday. I bite my lip. That’s 27 hours after I opened the support case.
So, by this point, I have wasted 6 hours of my time, and half a tank of gas. By the time this gets resolved, assuming that the part is in fact delivered when they say it will be, that will become likely 10 hours of time, and a full tank of gas.
And you know the funny thing? This is a damned $60 part.
Posted by Bobby Kuzma at 07:41 AM in | Comments (0) | Email this entry
Page 1 of 1 pages