HP's policy with regard to incentive payments and after-sales support has
become a cause of concern for channel partners in Chandigarh. 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 compan y 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.”