HP Inc. Customer Support, APJ

Name of Organization / Company: HP Inc. Customer Support, APJ, Bangalore, India
Category: J01 - J02 Award for Innovation in Customer Service > J02. Award for Innovation in Customer Service Management, Planning & Practice > Computer Industries

Entry Title: Reinventing Premium Support in South Pacific

Essay:

Back in 2015, HP’s customer support started working with our leadership on how we were going to differentiate our support compared to other vendors in the premium /gaming segment. July 2015, HP South Pacific faced a dilemma; HP was reinventing itself by launching a new range of notebooks in this category that lead with advanced technology and new aesthetically pleasing design.

The Gap - support and service for these products did not match the Premium Brand that HP was building.

In that period, the premium consumer Net Promotor Score (NPS) in service was -5% which effectively meant that the number of detractors of our service was more than the people who promoted the service. It was clear this is not the HP Way and had to be addressed.

Project Team was formed and during the research / analysis stage, found these concerns:
• Poor communication and technical skills in our support center
• Quicker resolution
• Choice in support delivery
• End to end ownership of each call

The Plan was born – Customer Support to deliver a Differentiated Support Model for our premium/gaming customers Support Centre: HP created a Premium Support Team within our call center; we provided enhanced technical troubleshooting for this team. The team members also had a passion for our gaming platforms and had the soft skills required to talk to Customers in this segment. During this period the Net Promotor Score doubled.

Support Solutions: Once the upgraded phone support was in place by the end of 2016, the next step was to prepare for local onsite support options which our customers welcomed. HP started with a selected number of premium products and changed their service delivery from a bench model to onsite support using our commercial onsite team in our major city locations. Throughout 2017, we expanded the premium products to include a broader range of models and over the next 2 quarters, the Net Promotor Score increased to 31%

In late 2017 we initiated the last phase of the change in support for premium by introducing a new team in the regional contact center that would concentrate on the overall end to end experience of the customer. This team called the Total Case Ownership (TCO) Team would take ownership of the customer’s case if the issue was not resolved after an onsite visit. Before the TCO Team, most of the detractors in our customer satisfaction survey at this stage were customers who had unresolved issues and we had closed their case prematurely. The TCO Team would keep the case open and keep the customer informed in all steps in their journey to get their issue resolved.

Very quickly, the Net Promotor Score climbed to 53% which is an increase of 58% since inception - a significant shift in premium consumers perspective on HP product. We have also initiated a callback team in Australia who speak to our Customers about their experience with HP.

Listening to our Customers has allowed HP to develop this Differentiated Support Model and we are continuing to listen and be flexible and agile as an organization to ensure we continue to change and modify our support models based on Customer feedback and their changing needs.

Few of the customer comments for the SPAC Premium Support team –
“Rang about my problem on a Friday - resolved on the Monday. Very unusual as I live in a rural area and normally everything takes ages. Very pleased with my experience.”

“What a pleasant surprise I got when you sent a technician to my home. He was fast, professional and frankly a lovely person. You have restored my faith in HP and I actually posted on social media how wonderfully you handled my problem. “