A few days before Christmas, I published the story of a father who had purchased two new Compaq laptops as presents for his daughters, only to find his family's Christmas threatened by HP reneging on a promised warranty repair. In early March, I wrote about a reader whose Compaq laptop came back from HP missing its battery cover and who was finally forced to replace it himself. Other than the fact that both had been treated poorly by HP support, the two gripes weren't all that similar, but what's happened since is where the real differences lie.

Hoping to prompt some quick action by HP, in the father's case I had included the HP case number for his support incident in the story. That's a technique that appears to have produced good results in some other gripes we've looked at recently, but there was no joy from HP at Christmas, or for a considerable time thereafter. "My wife and I fought with them up until Christmas eve, escalating to the top of the food chain and contacting everyone I know," says the father, who is a network consultant and, it so happens, an authorized HP reseller himself. "Finally we decided to return both units as both were flawed, one with the bad pixel and the other with a power issue. We didn't get the two new ones until Feb. 14th. At least we got them in time for Valentine's Day. Not bad, considering I first purchased them on Thanksgiving."

In stark contrast was the experience of the reader with the missing battery cover. All he wanted was some kind of apology for the way he was treated and a check for the $20.98 he'd spent on eBay for a replacement, and he quickly had both. "Today I got a call from an HP Case Manager who listened to my story and promised me a refund of my $20.98 if I send him a receipt for the purchase, which I just faxed to him," the reader wrote just a few days after I'd published the story. "He verbally apologized. Although he could not promise a written apology, he said HP would conduct an internal investigation. Thanks for publicizing my case."

From my own point of view, the differing ways HP responded to the two stories was quite odd. With the Christmas story, I had no official communications from HP on it at all. For the battery cover, though, I had my choice of HP representatives who volunteered to help the reader out. On the basis of how egregious the two incidents were and how much of a black eye each gave to HP, I would have expected the reverse response. And certainly reader commentary on the two stories indicates most feel the same way I do.

In fact, a good percentage of the e-mail I received about the missing battery cover seemed to come from HP employees or ex-HP employees. All were writing a month after Fiorina was fired (and before Mark Hurd was hired as CEO), and all sounded the same basic hope that things at HP are now going to change. "I'm not equipped to offer an apology for the whole company, but out of the spirit of the original HP Way, I can offer your reader my own apologies that this ever happened," wrote one HP employee. "A lot of the press has decided that HP is on its way down, or out, or both. That's a bigger challenge than I can answer by myself, but maybe by doing this small thing, I can give this customer some affirmation that the HP Way is still alive and well, if a little worse for wear. And maybe it will help assure folks that the pride HP takes in its products -- the same pride I felt when I got that first little HP name badge that I'd looked forward to all my life -- that pride is still intact. Don't give up on us, Mr. Customer; down deep, we're still a strong company built by tens of thousands of strongly-principled, customer-focused employees."

Well, I very much hope he's right. Of course, the cynic in me finds it hard to believe that HP's problems all left with Carly Fiorina, and I very much doubt they all started with her either. But, if a corporate culture counts for anything, there does seem to be at least some signs that HP may indeed regain a bit of its traditional customer focus. Of course, the only way we'll know for sure is to see the track the outcome of what customers find to gripe about next.