Unethical Service Provision, Essay Example

Today competition has been growing due to globalization and at the same time consumers have higher expectations due to greater choices. One would imagine companies paying more attention to customer service even if their primary business is selling tangible products but as my experience demonstrates, this is not always the case. Even more surprising to me was the fact that my experience involved a major multinational corporate that is a market leader.

Back in 2007, I bought a laptop directly from HP and after optional features, my laptop ended up costing almost twice the price of an entry level model. The optional features I went for included Nvidia top of the line video card with advanced graphic capabilities. Just two years later, my laptop’s graphic card died and also damaged the motherboard in the process. After investigating the issue, I discovered that I was not the only victim of Nvidia’s video card burning but instead the issue was widespread. Apparently, all computing manufacturers including HP and Sony were aware of the issue and offered warranty to repair it. But HP offered only 6 months time frame from the date of announcement. In addition, the company didn’t even bother to contact the customers whose laptops were equipped with the defected video card. Since my video card died out after the repair time frame had already passed, HP refused to repair my laptop. Even though the customer service manager admitted my laptop was equipped with a defective product, he said the company could not offer free repair because I was late. I even mentioned the fact that HP never contacted me and moreover, rivals like Sony had offered much longer time frame. HP should have repaired all laptops irrespective of when the problem occurred because the video cards were defective to begin with. When a customer pays for a product, he expects a quality product. Moreover, a company has a responsibility to inform all customers whose products might have been affected. In this case, I had bought directly from HP and the company had my contact information.

I reacted to this unethical conduct by HP through engaging in negative word-of-mouth marketing. I posted on forums about my experience and also made a pledge to never buy a product from HP ever again and to this day, I am staying true to it. After that, whenever anyone asked me about laptop suggestion, I would always tell them to stay clear of HP. I am sure I am not the only one who engaged in negative word-of-mouth marketing and there must have been many others who reacted the same way to an unethical conduct by HP.