Lenovo Service Headed in the Wrong Direction

So, I've been a Thinkpad user for many years. I mean MANY years, and the service and support provided by IBM was what kept bringing me back every time I tried another laptop.

When IBM sold out to Lenovo, I was confident that their products, service, and support would eventually suffer, and today was more proof that this is exactly what is happening.

Here's the whole story... so far.

I placed an order for a new T61 a week ago. I got an email from Lenovo stating that they were unable to process my order and that I needed to call my credit card company to proceed. If they did not hear from me within 120 hours, they may have to cancel my order. They provided a return phone number and a passcode. Seems like a pretty crappy way of contacting someone.

Well, I called my credit card company on Saturday and they said they would process the request the next time it was made.

I then called the number provided by Lenovo in the email on Saturday morning right after talking to my credit card company. The phone rang and requested that I enter a passcode. I entered the passcode provided and a pre-recorded message said I would be transferred to the credit card division. After waiting on hold for 10 minutes, a message came on and said that their hours of operation were from 8:00 - 6:00 eastern time, Monday through Friday. No big deal, but it would have been nice if they would tell you that before you wait 10 minutes on hold.

I called this morning (Monday) at 9:00 a.m. EST and went through the same passcode, transfer, and on hold routine. After 10 minutes, I got a message that provided their hours of operation and due to unexpected calls, they could not take my call at that time, but I could leave a message and they would call me back.

Ready for the kicker...?

I was transferred again to their message service and promptly received a message that I couldn't leave a message because their call box was FULL.

WTF?

If you have to go through this much CRAP just to give them your money, how are you going to get treated when you have a problem?

Aren't there any laptop vendors who know how to treat a customer? Price doesn't matter, I want service.

 

This is Monday morning, 9AM, the very beginning of their hours of operation. Give it a few more minutes. I'm sure by then there will be more people in the office to take your calls.

 

The same thing happened to me as well.
The only difference was, my passcode wasn't valid one so I couldn't do anything about it.
After about 5 days, I gave up and I cancelled my order.

 

Just called and after sitting on hold for 2-3 minutes, got everything cleared up. OK, now I feel better.

 

Glad to hear you got everything cleared up. That's too bad you had to go through the initial troubles. Hopefully this was just an isolated case.

 

I personally (knock on wood) never needed there support. Never had any problems with any thinkpad.

 

I think you are blowing things way out of proportion.

 

I don't think he's blowing anything out of proportion. Perhaps you're just used to lower standards?

 

i am glad that your problem resolved , I ordered my T60p on April 25 and received it on may 2nd , when i placed my order i asked them about T61p and they promised to let me know when it comes and if i am still during my 21 days return policy they help me to get it , 2 days before release of T61 they called me and informed me about release date of T61 and if i want it , I told them no and I want 15 or 15.4 " display so they informed me about release date of T61p and video card options ( i did post it here for everyone ) , they issued a RMA for returning my T60p and first gave me 10 days then for my peace of mind they gave me 30 days to return the system so by that time T61p is out so i can make up my mind , they even will full refund my money without holding or charging re-stocking fee, just trust my word for buying the new system , what would you call this? i call it GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE

 

If you think he is blowing things out of proportion you are naive about Lenovo. My buying experience, and the subsequent product, were possibly my worst ever. I sincerely regret buying a Z61T ThinkPad. It failed within a week, took nearly three months to be repaired properly, nothing but runaround after runaround. And the machine still has problems.

But more to the point. A close friend who works in the Australian office of Lenovo tells me the company is getting ready to or already has, started the process of laying off 1200-1400 people, most of whom formed the core of the support and technical personnel from the IBM era. He says the company when it WAS IBM was fantastic but now is an abismal mess.

I would never, ever, buy another Lenovo product.

 

Can you say placebo effect?

 

Perhaps I'd prefer to live my life in a manner where I don't consider having to wait ten minutes on hold or having to make a couple extra phone calls to be that big of deal.

 

The sad situation is that there really is no one out there who has built a reputation based on service and support... except IBM. The problem is, IBM is no longer in the game.

If I can relate a short story. I was on vacation in Cancun and my keyboard failed on my Thinkpad. I was going to be there 8 more days and couldn't bare the thought of not being able to use my laptop. What the heck, I called IBM and explained the situation to them. I stretched the truth and told them that I simply MUST have a new keyboard because it was a working vacation. Mostly true. Anyhow, they FEDEX'd a new keyboard to the hotel I was staying at... AT NO COST TO ME. Now that's what I call service and support.

I've dealt with all the major vendors and while it's partially true that the quality of your support depends on who you talk to, IBM was the only one that provided support that matched the quality of their products. Just my opinion and your mileage may vary.

 

The topic is kind of misleading. But, I'm glad your problem was resolved.
I have no problem with my T60 so far (two month old).

 

And that's the reason why IBM lost so much money on their personal PC division, and had to sell it to Lenovo.

 

This is fairly true. During it's last couple years under IBM's ownership, the personal computer division at IBM saw annually increasing rates in warranty claims that ate into their net sales, where as other mass market vendors like HP or Dell remained constant. A lot of journalists speculated IBM's quality control was becoming increasingly poor, but I think the real reason was they went out of there way to help customers and people took advantage of it and maybe even abused it.

I think that's the reason why standard warranties on ThinkPads dropped from thee year to just one year, which is depressing for a business-class notebook.

 

Just as Costco's return policy went from lifetime to three months.

 

I may be dumb but dont a lot of the thinkpads still come with 3 year warranties?

 

Yeah, which was a great, great way to repay customer loyalty. Unfortunately, people saw it as a free trade-in program. It's interesting to note that REI, the sports equipment company, has a similar lifetime 100% guarantee policy. While it does have its abusers, they still manage to thrive and have an incredibly loyal customer base (myself included) despite charging full MSRP for almost everything.

Not standard, no. It wasn't publicized much (why publicize a downgrade in customer service?) and there is still somewhat misleading print about warranty on some Lenovo webpages (i.e. Standard one year or three year warranty, or something like that). But if you do a run through shopping on the site, it's clear that one year is standard. Although to Lenovo's credit, a three year warranty is only $100 or so (at least for my configuration) and that was a $1300 laptop. Most places charge at least $200-$300 for that. Lenovo probably still has the best warranty of all the big manufacturers, although these days that's not saying much. Still, I don't know if it's worth it, since if I purchase a laptop on my Visa, it automatically extends my warranty by an extra year.