HP - A Wonderful Example Of Quality Customer Service

All too often we hear bad things about large organisation's customer service, but my dealings with a multi-national corporation today proved that quality customer service is alive and well in the "big end" of corporate town.

I own a Hewlett Packard external hard drive and yesterday the USB cable "shorted" out so I am unable to access the data on it.

This cable is not a "standard" type cable - it has a standard USB connection on one end, but a unique shaped connection on the other and when I rang some retailers in my area to source a replacement I was told that the only place I could get a replacement from is direct from Hewlett Packard itself, as they do not stock replacement cables.

I rang the Hewlett Packard Customer Service Centre and explained my predicament to the assistant who immediately arranged for a replacement USB cable to be sent out to me - free of charge!!!

That's right - no interrogation to find out what had happened, no request for me to pay the postage - nothing - just a simple apology for the inconvenience, a quick discussion to get my name and address and a reference number for my records, with an assurance that the USB cable will be delivered to me in a week or so.

Have a think about the implications of this transaction for a moment - a USB cable would cost a company like Hewlett Packard a few dollars (if that) to produce and the postage would be no more than $2.00 to $3.00 to get it delivered to me, so it costs Hewlett Packard less than $5.00 to now have a raving fan who will tell as many people as he can about how good the Hewlett Packard customer service is - pretty cheap advertising ah?!!

As business owners, we are often too focussed on short term "pain" to worry about the long term "gain" when we resist giving customers refunds and things like replacement parts when something goes wrong with a product or service we provide.

Perhaps we should spend a little more time thinking about the overall "cost" of saying things like "sorry, but this is out of warranty, so we can't help you".

Thank you Hewlett Packard - a wonderful example of quality customer service.