Early last year, after returning the abominable Epson WorkFarce 1100 ("now with InstaClog (tm)") I had just purchased from Amazon, I went to the local OfficeMax and grabbed my first HP printer, the OfficeJet 7000.
My wife needs wide-format printing for her design studio, and large-format units with a reasonable price are rare. We weren't sure of what to expect from HP, but it turned out to be a good purchase. In fact, my review of the OfficeJet 7000 is now the top-rated favorable review of this particular model on Amazon. In short, if you're willing to pay for the ink, the OJ 7000 reliably puts ink on paper and has first-class four-color print quality (i.e.: not designed for photos, but great at graphics).
Printing is not an everyday task in my wife's studio, but when she needs output she tends to need a whole stack of pages, and client requests or prints for product prototyping won't wait. So I took the sales pitch for the extended warranty that OfficeMax offers, reassured that I could get my printer fixed or replaced within a three-year period . . . A fifty-dollar insurance policy.A couple months ago, after a solid 18 months of reliable service, thousands of pages, and hundreds of dollars in ink, our loyal little HP began to act up. Specifically, my wife noted that the printer had difficulty ejecting pages properly to the output tray after printing (where before it had nearly shot the paper across the room), requiring her to grab the paper and pull it out.
The next phase was not just improper paper ejection after printing--It was the paper stopping its forward motion just before the page was done, causing ink to be laid down in one spot and ruining the whole print.
I dug out my original sales receipt and MaxAssurance information folder and realized I needed to "register" my purchase online merely to ask for help. The registration process on the MA site was a bit obtuse, but functional, and after getting through that I was asked to describe the problem, a precursor (I imagined) for getting someone on the phone or web chat to talk over the problem. Instead, it was a list of tech support articles / troubleshooting suggestions, none of which had anything to do with this particular model of printer.
When I responded to this presentation of suggestions with the interactive button labeled something like "Sorry, the problem still exists," I was given a reference number and asked to call the number shown on the MaxAssurance folder, which promised "a quick toll-free phone call" where "customer care reps are available to assist you 24/7."
First, there's nothing "quick" about calling MaxAssurance, or whatever third-party call center sweatshop represents this particular brand. After automated routines that ask you to enter (and confirm) your phone number, incident number, and navigate a prickly phone tree designed to peel off the inattentive, you finally get to talk to a first-tier functionary who laboriously and woodenly confirms everything you've just said, point by tedious point, as if writing it down on a clipboard with a carpenter's pencil.
After describing the issue that I had already documented in my initial registration process, I was shuttled off to another group which would ostensibly perform the actual troubleshooting.
After several minutes of holding, I was again asked to repeat and confirm everything I had already said, and a bland, equally wooden-sounding supposed technician took the line and suggested I "clean the printer's rollers." I had to admit that was worth a try (though he was sketchy on the specifics), but before dropping off the line I asked if there was any way to avoid repeating the entire phone-tree/call routing routine if the cleaning didn't work and I needed to call back. Surprisingly, he offered a 24-hour case number and special line that would get me through directly.
The call ended, I checked the OJ 7000's online manual and found a brief reference to cleaning the print rollers, but only the rollers at the back of the machine, that would seem to have very little to do with ejecting the paper. But they were a bit dusty, and--determined to give his suggestion a fair shake--I cleaned them.
For several days, the problem appeared to have faded away. Then it started again, and again I got on the MA website and logged in. After the perfunctory "have you tried these fixes?" scan, I hit the "Start web chat" button, which promptly popped up a window telling me web chat was closed for the day.
Back to phone: I again navigated the smarmy phone tree, entered/repeated/confirmed my information multiple times, and again talked to Miss Initial Screening before being transferred to Mr. Technical Answers. I will give this service credit for having easy-to-understand English speakers, but they seemed so bored and miserable in their roles that I felt sorry for them--and tried to keep my patter polite.
The call lasted about twenty minutes total, and included being put on hold multiple times, with distorted-sounding background music that almost seems designed to induce hang-ups. But Bored Mr. Tech finally came back on and informed me that his employer would not attempt to repair this device--They would simply issue a check for the original purchase price.
It was a positive outcome, particularly since I had expected a long-turnaround ship-in and repair process that would leave us printerless for weeks or months, another part of the typical service equation designed to make the average buyer say, "Oh, forget it. I'll just go buy another printer."
Anyway, the MaxAssurance warranty was probably worth it in this case, the difficulty of "filing a claim" notwithstanding.
After Mr. Tech told me that the check was on its way ("10-15 days"--You just can't rush these things when Frank the Accountant has to write them all by hand and ponies with mailbags must be dispatched), I thanked him, and politely told him I wanted to pass a comment on to his supervisor or manager. There was a pause during which he offered no acknowledgment of what I had just said, but I could hear him breathing so I forged ahead:
"I'm going to share my experience with MaxAssurance with my friends, family members, co-workers, and anyone else who stumbles across my consumer value blog. I'm not going to say bad things about the people who work at MaxAssurance, but I am going to share a factual account of the tedium, repetition, delays, obvious attempts to induce frustrated hang-ups, and generally lackluster treatment your organization markets as 'customer care' and a 'quick toll-free phone call.' Then other prospective MaxAssurance buyers can decide if they want to deal with the experience I've described, or tell the sales person, 'No, thanks, I've heard filing a claim is difficult.'"
Silence. "Are you still there?" I asked. Pause. Then with immense weariness: "Yes." He made no attempt at justification, damage control, or even polite acknowledgement. I could almost imagine him thinking, "I know, you annoying !$#%--and I hear what you're saying a dozen times a day. But I am spiritless and broken and paying $1100 for a one-bedroom apartment in Pasadena and now she's bringing her kid to live with us and I simply have to keep this !#@$ job."
"Do you need any more information from me?" I asked. "No." "Alright, thank you very much!" Then, with no further comment from Depressed Mr. Tech, the line went dead.
There's a tech support worker in a photo on the MaxAssurance brochure. She smiles cheerfully from behind her headset, fingers poised on the keyboard in front of her flat-panel display, ready to help untangle your knottiest customer service issue. In the background of her light and airy room is a potted plant.
Somehow, I suspect the people I talked to don't work in that room.
