Tom,

If it will make you feel any better, I too experienced this same situation
not too long ago.  To make
matter even worse, My local CE was here.  He call his own "Special Number"
and while I was
waiting for 30+ minutes on one phone, He did the same on another.  I brought
this to the attention of my ASE...but we will see.

James Reynolds
 ----------
From: Tom Madigan
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: HP Response Center (possible oxymoron?)
Date: Monday, September 27, 1999 11:16AM

I'm trying to gauge the level of responsiveness from the HP "Response"
Center
and if I am the only person who is experiencing a very long delay in getting
problems resolved.

Last Friday evening, we experienced a disk drive in the system volume set
drop offline, probably because of a bad signal on the SCSI bus.  Naturally,
all activity on the system eventually froze waiting for the errant ldev.
 The
only solution which proved successful was to cycle power on the entire
system
which removed the bad signal and allowed the system to reboot.

When I called the HP "Response" Center and worked my way through the "unable
to boot your MPE system" path, I was placed on hold for over 30 minutes
listening to "music on hold" and a much-repeated "please stay on the line
and
an engineer will be with you shortly".  Finally, after listening to this
drivel for about 35 minutes, I pressed zero to get an operator who,
unfortunately, received an earful of my wrath.  In fairness to all
concerned,
once I did reach the call coordinator, I did receive fairly quick action on
my problem.

I find myself asking two questions at this point:  1) if I did not "zero
out"
to a call coordinator, how much longer would I have had to listen to
music-on-hold WHILE MY SYSTEM WAS DEAD? and 2) am I the only customer
experiencing this problem?  Judging from previous transactions with the
"Response" Center, I am willing to bet that the above situation is a COMMON
occurrence.  My original assumption was that HP installed the automated
phone
system to increase its responsiveness to its customers; my assumption now
(and HP does nothing to counter this perception) is that the automated phone
system is being used to place more DISTANCE between HP and its customers.
 Am
I wrong here?  Am I not seeing something I should be seeing or reading too
much into the equation??

Comments welcomed!!

Tom Madigan
HP Systems Manager
International Communications Research, Inc.
605 West State Street
Media, PA  19063-2620
Email:  [log in to unmask]

"My opinions are strictly my own and are posted for discussion purposes
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 Postings to this or any discussin group in no way should be construed as
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