Post Purchase Is Important

The customer purchase decision contains 7 steps and I believe the last step is overlooked the most by many businesses, post purchase. Essentially, when the purchase has been made and the customer is reflecting on whether they are satisfied, it fulfilled their needs etc.

Today I had to ring a particular company, HP, about the warranty on my calculator. I named Hewlett Packard because I believe it's important to inform other consumers about all types of experiences.

My first difficulty was locating a number to actually contact the company on. If it takes me 20 minutes searching your website to no avail then that is the first problem. I only persisted because I needed my issue resolved. What if I had positive feedback about your products and gave up after 10 minutes? Is it too much to ask to make a large company contactable in some way?

After dialing the only phone number I came across during my search it automatically went to an automated message with an American accent saying to call back during business hours. In my desperation I rang the parts department in the hope they would be able to assist. I was told by all 7 different operators that I spoke to, after being on hold and giving over my contact details every time, that they couldn't help. I collected 5 different phone numbers to call and after trying all of them I still hadn't spoken to anyone who could remotely help me.

I don't think I am a difficult customer to deal with. In my casual job I deal with disgruntled customers on a daily basis and have sworn I would never behave in such a manner with anyone regardless of how angry they made me. With such a large business like HP is it so difficult to ensure you have a sufficient amount of resources available to help your customers. After my negative experience with HP I know I won't be buying the brand again, even if my issue doesn't eventually get resolved. With a competitive market across all types of products and services there is no shortage of choice for consumers. If businesses want to keep me as a loyal customer they need to understand my needs and try their best to accommodate them. It won't work out every time but a little bit of effort is all I want.

So now I'm stuck with a broken HP calculator, trying to calculate the time difference between America and Australia to ring HP, and having wasted half my day.

Am I too harsh on HP's lack of service or well within my rights as a consumer?