From conspiracy theory to reality, HP has decided to ditch its mandatory 15-minute wait time for customers using its telephone-based support team.
Putting it down to “initial feedback, the U-turn came when it became apparent that the tech company introduced minimum waiting times before speaking with a human being.
HP’s Goal Was to “Encourage More Digital Adoption”
We all know the feeling of being sat on hold to customer service, thinking, ‘surely there aren’t that many people waiting in the queue.’
It turns out that when it came to HP, we were probably right.
Theorized as an attempt to lean on customers to use other channels, such as its chatbot or social media, in a memo to staff, HP said: “The wait time for each customer is set to 15 minutes – notice the expected wait time is mentioned only in the beginning of the call.”
The main objective of this being to “encourage more digital adoption by nudging customers to go online to self-solve,” and “taking decisive, short-term action to generate warranty cost efficiencies.”
Initial Feedback as Fiery as Expected
While the initial feedback is likely due to those working internally at HP, people quickly took to social media to vent their frustration at the decision.
One user took to LinkedIn to state:
“Can you believe it? HP Europe purposely prolonged the wait time to reach a customer service rep to 15 minutes in hopes more customers would use online self-service methods.
Who’s the CX genius who came up with the brilliant idea?!?!
Another user wrote that “some things are just too crazy to be made up.”
HP Claim They Were Simply Raising Awareness of Digital Options
After abandoning the policy, HP issued a statement that it is “always looking for ways to improve” its customer service experience.
HP highlighted that the support offering was intended to “provide more digital options” and “reduce time to resolve inquiries.”
We have found that many of our customers were not aware of the digital support options we provide.
“Based on initial feedback, we know the importance of speaking to live customer service agents in a timely fashion is paramount.”
As a result, it will continue to “prioritize timely access” to live phone support to ensure “we are delivering an exceptional customer experience.”
This Issue Isn’t Isolated According to Gartner
While this could be seen as a trivial isolated policy that was rectified, it paints a much larger problem facing contact centers: balancing human agents with chatbots.
As AI continues to influence contact center dialogues, organizations are advised against exclusively pursuing digital solutions. Gartner predicts that the EU could incorporate “the right to talk to a human” into its consumer protection laws within the next three years.
This forecast is driven by GenAI’s rapid expansion and significance. As an increasing number of customer service roles become automated, Gartner anticipates that by 2027, 30 percent of organizations will have merged multiple positions into a single customer-facing role.
This problem isn’t going away any time soon, and negative PR such as this certainly won’t persuade large swathes of people who are already skeptical of such technology.
Achieving the right balance of precisely what, where, and how much AI to incorporate will distinguish the good from the great and safeguard against potential future regulations.
According to Gartner, the most effective approach involves having AI support assisting agents rather than replacing them.
The report emphasizes that, under current conditions, “replacing customer service representatives with a generative AI-powered chatbot is too risky, costly, and complex.”
However, it does acknowledge that many organizations may still consider this a viable option, especially in the future.
