Hewlett Packard - Just When You Think You’ve Seen Everything
One of my very loyal readers (there’s him, my wife and loving mother) asked me to post his experience with HP.
Here’s David Howse’s wonderful adventure and opinions with HP:
Yesterday I bought a HP 3600N color laser printer which comes with a full 4-color toner set. It cost me $380 (in Canada). I ran a job that day of 1900 copies. This morning I ran out of black. To buy a toner set will cost $520us or over $600 in Canada.
So, who’s good at math? Should I buy the toner set or a new printer? I called HP Canada to help me with the math and they confirmed that $380 was less than $520 and that buying a new printer was cheaper than buying more toner.
With those facts confirmed, I called HP headquarters in Palo Alto to get a response from someone in PR about conflicting messages between Sales and Marketing.http://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts_printing.html (be resourceful and help save the environment)
Marketing Message:
Sales Message: Chuck that thing in the garbage and get a new one (the printer is one-day old!) I am only inferring that this is the message.
As I navigated my way around the phone system I found the Marketing Support Center. I tried every option and the best was Special Events. Here’s the message,”We are only interested in special events that occur in the year 2005.”
Now I know that this is a marketing discussion, but does this mean that HP has time travel technology? (yeah, I know).
Marketing 2.0: If this is the customer experience at HP, how far is HP from Marketing 2.0? I felt somewhat embarrassed for them. I spent most of my time with tech support because the phone system pushes you in that direction (”let tech support handle it”). The manager truly understood my reasoning but said that she wasn’t allowed to comment on these sorts of things, nor did she have the authority to transfer me out of the department.
I’m more bothered because HP makes great products, it’s a great technology company. Who’s running the marketing?
There you have it. Thank you David for sharing your story on the branding?blog. And anyone else that has a good article send it on over.
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August 27th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
this is what i call brand inconsistency. i personally do not know which element of the whole product chain process that cause hp to sell higher price of its toners than its printers. if the objectives is to sell more printers, then is it an appropriate strategy approach to do so for a giant corporation like hp?
that surely explains why in my country, indonesia, people just love to purchase toner refill than new toners.
September 19th, 2008 at 5:37 am
I agree with Candra in this issue having brand inconsistency. HP does no doubt makes good products and well known for its various good printers but this is one area they need to look at.