Dark Patterns vs. Customer Experience Efficiency: HP’s Hold-Time Controversy

Imagine calling tech support and being told you’ll need to wait 15 minutes. Not because the lines are busy, but because the company wants to see how long you’ll stick around.

That’s what happened to HP customers in February 2025. What began as an experiment quickly became a lesson in the delicate balance between business efficiency and upholding customer trust.

The Customer Experience Experiment That Backfired

On February 18, customers in several European countries who called HP support heard an on-hold message saying high call volumes meant a minimum 15-minute hold time. The recording suggested customers try the company’s website or virtual assistant for faster help.

But an internal memo later revealed the hold time was intentional. The company wanted customers to abandon phone support and move to self-service tools instead.

From an HP cost perspective, the logic made sense. Digital support is far cheaper to run than human-staffed call centers.

From a customer experience (CX) perspective, it felt like manipulation.

Within hours, tech media and online communities labeled HP's tactics as a “dark pattern,” a deliberate, manipulative customer experience design choice that exploits friction, fatigue, or confusion to steer customers’ behavior in ways they might not otherwise choose.

Within 48 hours, HP reversed course. But the incident surfaced a constant CX leadership dilemma.

The CX Leadership Challenge: Ethics vs. Efficiency

Customer expectations haven’t changed much over the years. When problems are complex, people still want to talk to a real person.

What has changed is the economic reality CX leaders face.

In 2016, CX stood alone as the top priority for corporate contact center leaders, outranking operational improvement, tech transformation, and revenue generation. Fast forward to 2024, and research showed the hierarchy had disappeared, according to a report from McKinsey.

Shortly after the controversy, HP announced plans to eliminate thousands of jobs as part of broader cost reductions. So, the pressures driving the situation were very real.

A dark pattern is a deliberately manipulative customer experience design choice that exploits friction, fatigue, or confusion to steer customers’ behavior in ways they might not otherwise choose.

Leading Customer Experience in Complex Systems

Moments like this capture a truth many CX industry consultants and onlookers underestimate: CX decisions rarely exist in isolation. They sit inside a larger system involving:

• Customer expectations

• Operational costs

• Technology adoption

• Employee livelihoods

• Brand reputation

• Geopolitics

• Supply chain challenges

Change one, and the entire system reacts.

In my book, Sage Works Guide to Global Leadership, I wrote about situations like these, where leaders must think and work quickly within heavily interconnected systems.

The New Customer Experience Reality

The HP hold-time experiment lasted less than two days, but the underlying leadership tension continues everywhere.

As much as we'd like to revisit the classic CX, hyperbolic "the customer is always right," the reality is that efficiency, technology, and human expectations are constantly pushing against each other.

Sustainable business and sustainable leadership often mean recognizing that both the customer and the company must be right.

Leadership in these complex systems means deciding how those shifts happen and whether customers feel guided or pushed into dark patterns along the way.

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