HP faces channel ire...

-- Pooja Sharma

Chandigarh, Jan 5

HP's policy with regard to incentive payments and after-sales support has
become a cause of concern for channel partners in Chandigarh. While a number of
partners in the region are unhappy due to the delay in incentive payments, the
company's policy of holding back some of the payments and further
misappropriation in the accounting of the same is adding channel woes. In
addition, the quality of after-sales support and the time involved in offering
the same is deteriorating day-by-day, posing problems for partners and their
customers.

In view of the increasing number of complaints, Chandigarh IT Association is
contemplating banning HP in the region. A senior member of the association
stated, "We held a meeting a few days ago and discussed various problems we have
been facing from HP's end. It was decided that if HP does not pay heed to our
queries we may stop all billings for the company until they are agree to resolve
matters amicably."

When contacted, an HP dealer in Chandigarh, informed The DQ Week on the
condition of anonymity, "HP has been delaying a number of our incentive payments
and in some cases the delay has been for as long as two years. In between
several programs were announced and we did receive incentive payments towards
them but there are several other programs for which incentives are yet to be
handed out by HP."

Echoing similar sentiments another HP dealer claimed that after-sales service
is yet another distressing issue. The dealer clarified, "HP's AMD-based laptops
were sold in the market despite the fact that they had run out of warranty and
were faulty. However, the company later extended warranty on them without our
knowledge. This posed serious problems for me as many of my customers were
facing technical problems with their machines that had run out of warranty. Many
of my customers later filed cases against me. At the moment, I have more than
five cases running against me in the consumer court. As far as service
complaints are concerned I have more than 20 service complaints pending at my
end."

Dealers in the region averred that in many cases only 50 percent of incentive
payments are reimbursed by HP. Amongst the various programs announced by the
company, Mobile Moghul program offering trips abroad, has been pending for the
past two years. They further claimed that when they inquired about the same from
the company, HP stated that the official who had devised the program had made
some calculation errors at his end and hence the program was not valid. HP came
out with the above statement only after one year when partners had already
achieved their targets. The partners also mentioned that their backends for
April, May, June (AMJ) 2008 and even the ones announced before AMJ, are yet to
be received by many of them.

Throwing light on the worsening service support of HP, a channel partners
mentioned, "The company never took more than two to three days to replace faulty
parts or look into other related service issues. But the number of complaints
have been on the rise of late and it takes HP more than a month to resolve
issues. In Chandigarh alone there are more than 100 complaints pending and there
is just too much of traffic at the local service center with no one to pay heed
to customers woes."

When asked about the delay and misappropriation of incentive payments, Rajiv
Grover, Director-Consumer Products, Personal Systems Group, HP stated, "HP has
the largest channel partner network across the country-over 3,500 channel
partners comprising premium business partners, business partners and registered
resellers which are handled most effectively through well defined processes and
policies. HP has a transparent incentive process for all partners wherein all
incentives, programs and achievements are documented and payouts are made as per
the programs released. We also follow rigorous TAT targets on incentive payouts
and review process for pending payouts. HP has also invested in a large sales
team whose charter is to manage the final tier along with target and incentive
management."

Giving clarification on the after-sales support issue, Grover reiterated, "At
HP, we have a well defined structured processes/tracking mechanism to ensure
that all cases are closed with defined timelines. Once the call is logged in our
systems it gets resolved within the timeline. To ensure customer convenience, we
update them through SMS as well on the status of their service request."

...in West

Channels allege that the post sale service of the vendor has deteriorated,
and the IT major is overlooking the issue due to their growing marketshare

-- Akhilesh Shukla

Resellers in West are not quite happy with the post-sale service of HP.
According to the channel community in the region, the quality of post-sale
service given by the IT major has touched an all time low. This has got them
feeling that the vendor is only bothered about its marketshare. "Previously HP
used to hold regularly meets, where we could sort out our problems during the
interaction. But this has now disappeared. HP is just concentrating on bigger
fish as they have a huge marketshare," said Sampath Iyengar of Mumbai-based Sam
7 Computers and Networks, who is one of the partners having long pending issue
with HP. When asked about the problems he was facing with HP's service Sampath
lamented, "A simple thing like a DVD recovery is not available in the service
center. Did you know that in some of the HP Pavilion laptops the DVD recovery
refused to start? I have three customers whose laptops have this problem and I
am afraid to think what will happen if their HDDs fail." Channels also allege
that HP is not bothered about servicing because all their products are selling
like hot cakes in the market. Similarly, channels are not willing to take on the
vendor fearing bad relationship with the major. "HP holds a monopoly in this
segment and thus are not very bothered about their services. More so because
despite their service being really unorganized and bad, all their products are
doing well," said Prashant Ugemuge, President, Vidarbha Computer Media Dealers
Welfare Association (VCMDWA). He also said that the response at the HP meets is
not very encouraging since, "Everybody wants their own problems to be addressed
first, everyone keeps shouting about their problems and no larger solution is
reached," he added. Shital Nahar, President, Computer and Media Dealers
Association (CMDA), Pune expressed similar sentiments. Nahar pointed out that
post-sale service of HP is a big issue among the channels in Pune. When asked
about some of the major problems dealers are facing Nahar said, "When an end
customer goes to an HP service center he is asked to produce original
distributor invoice, which is not supposed to be with him as there are channels
involved in between. Secondly, people at the service center insist that the
serial number of product should be printed not hand written. And lastly, service
center people refuse to give on-site service."

When contacted, M Vinayagamurthy, Country Manager-Consumer Support, Imaging
and Printing Group, HP India Sales clarified that producing an original
distributor invoice was not a standard HP support service process. "We
facilitate our customers with web-based entitlement system. Under this, the
customer entitles warranty in a seamless manner. At times, the customer is
requested to share the purchase invoice, only if the particular product is
showing out of warranty in the system and the product is within the warranty
period as per the date of purchase."

With regard to on-site warranty, Vinayagamurthy said, "We offer our customers
after sales support on the basis of the standard warranty terms, which can be
either carry-in or on-site, depending on the product range.