EDIT: This happened back in 2025. Will leave as I’m sure I’m not the only one that didn’t know, but I saw it on hacker news and didn’t realize it was a year old. My bad.
In an odd approach to trying to improve customer tech support, HP allegedly implemented mandatory, 15-minute wait times for people calling the vendor for help with their computers and printers in certain geographies.
Callers from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, and Italy were met with the forced holding periods, The Register reported on Thursday. The publication cited internal communications it saw from February 18 that reportedly said the wait times aimed to “influence customers to increase their adoption of digital self-solve, as a faster way to address their support question. This involves inserting a message of high call volumes, to expect a delay in connecting to an agent and offering digital self-solve solutions as an alternative.”
“influence customers to increase their adoption of digital self-solve”
Corporate speakers should be paddled
Rockwell Retro Encabulator
Translation: “We’ve had our fill of screwing you around for today and invite you to cordially go screw yourself.”
When it comes to HP, just say no.
Sounds like a great way to increase their adoption of a competitor’s product
They have paid good money to lawmakers to make sure that brother is never widely adopted.