I have to say that I hardly ever called HP, and the very few (less than 5) times I did it was a very good transaction.
I am not starting an HP vs East battle here, I have a feeling that the merger killed performance on each side. But I am getting ahead of myself....
Would you say it's worse, even or better?
Any real examples here would be interesting. As someone who has worked in call center operations and technology for 14 years, I have a feeling that there is zero quality control with US' call centers.
Here's a recent study that should be an eye opener for US:
Report Warns of Outsourced Call Centers
I don't necessarily see outsourcing as causing service to drop, in fact some of those (I might venture to say a majority) highly ranked catalog centers are outsourced. The difference is the time and money invested with either the outsourcing company or the call center management team to convey the level of quality as well as the metrics for service level. My employer has several catalog customers where we rank in the high 90th percentile of customer satisfaction; the key is that our people feel that they are part of that company's team.