this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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Technology

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EDIT: This happened back in 2025. Will leave as I’m sure I’m not the only one that didn’t know, but I saw it on hacker news and didn’t realize it was a year old. My bad.

In an odd approach to trying to improve customer tech support, HP allegedly implemented mandatory, 15-minute wait times for people calling the vendor for help with their computers and printers in certain geographies.

Callers from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, and Italy were met with the forced holding periods, The Register reported on Thursday. The publication cited internal communications it saw from February 18 that reportedly said the wait times aimed to “influence customers to increase their adoption of digital self-solve, as a faster way to address their support question. This involves inserting a message of high call volumes, to expect a delay in connecting to an agent and offering digital self-solve solutions as an alternative.”

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[–] criss_cross@lemmy.world 18 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Well shit. I saw it on hacker news and thought it was recent.

My bad for not paying attention.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 12 points 2 hours ago

To be fair, if you got on hold with HP support on the day the article was published, you'd still be onhold today.