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Ask HN: Any secrets for reaching a human at large companies?
5 points by elebant •                         
Not having social media is good for avoiding ragebait, but it leaves me feeling helpless when I'm running out of customer support options.

For the past 2 weeks, I have been failing to reach a human with competency and agency at HPE.

I have a tape drive, and HPE published a recommended firmware update, but firmware downloads are gated behind an active warranty, and my warranty expired a few months ago. Trying to buy a new warranty has been a nightmare.

For the past 3 weeks, I've been stuck in the tar pit of bouncing between departments, contact pages with no contact info, being ghosted on chats, being ghosted in email, managers saying they'll call and then not calling, getting referred to third-party companies that seemingly have no clue about tape drives, waiting on hold for 4 hours just to have my call disconnected, twice (see for yourself: if you call the sales number and press 1, you'll never get a human: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/contact-hpe.html)

I am at the point where I'm considering a 4 hour road trip to an office just to see if showing up in person will get attention on my issue.

Is there an approach I'm missing or unaware of?

al_borland •                         
Someone I know tends to email the CEO in situations like this, with a surprising level of success. They usually have a team of people managing their inbox. In several cases he’s ended up with a dedicated point of contact to see things through to resolution.
farseer •                         
And how do you find the e-mail address of that CEO?
al_borland •                         
They can often be found with a web search, there are some websites that catalog them.

It looks like HPE has a form to contact the executive team as well, which is worth a shot.

https://h41388.www4.hpe.com/contact/connect-with-hpe.html

thorin •                         
In the UK you can find names and a contact address in companies house e.g.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...

Not sure what the US or other equivalent is.

dormento •                         
No shibboleet[1] i'm afraid, the best you can do is raise the storm.

[1]https://xkcd.com/806/

drsalt •                         
have you tried a handwritten letter?
NishanStepak •                         
People tend to answer the contact form and either call you or send email before they answer the phone. This is also true of email.