Lenovo customer service question

I've heard great things about Lenovo's products: but the customer service stories are keeping me rather wary about buying anything from them. Could anyone here share some personal experiences to either confirm or remove my suspicion?

Edit: Added poll

 

well which country are you based in?

Lenovo does have the best forum out of the tier one computer companies.

 

Sorry about that.

I live in Canada, and I had just heard some bad stories about people getting hung up on by customer support people, not getting referred to a supervisor or manager when asked, and overall just having a frustrating experience. As I have not ever bought something from Lenovo I was just curious as to whether or not this was as big a problem as it seemed to be, keeping in mind that people love to complain.

Edit: How have your experiences with customer support/Lenovo in general been?

 

Yes but the shipping sucks.

 

So if I configure a model on their site and get it shipped to me, it'll take awhile?

Are they unreasonable with their return policies on defective items? I know what their warranty says, but I'm just checking if they follow through on that.

 

I configured a t520 and placed the order on the third, and it was on my doorstep on the eleventh. The initial estimated ship date with the fifteenth. Others have had bad experiences, though. Dunno what the norm is as I've only bought the one.

 

Simply put; It's hit or miss.

People are far more likely to complain about bad service than good service. It can draw an untrue and skewed perception of a company.

 

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll look into things further, so anyone else who wants to contribute would also be welcome.

 

The reps may be trying to be good, but there are things they can do nothing about: it is a pain in the neck to try to understand what they are saying with their heavy accent and ask them to repeat over and over again. This has wasted me a lot a lot of time unnecessarily and after each call my body temperature must have been higher.

Also, it seems unnecessary for every one of them to take the time to utter the long sentences, as soon as you described your purpose of the call: "Thank you for.... As I understand it, you are.... and want to.... I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. I hope that I can help you... " blah blah (something like that), while I was simply waiting for a cogent answer/solution (even though they were trying to give good impression and also maybe paying attention to what's being recorded?).

 

It depends entirely on the country in question.

My experience has been that it's excellent in the US, and hit-or-miss elsewhere.

 

Lenovo service is excellent. You should buy on-site service instead of mail-in service if uptime is important to you, and I believe this leads to shorter down time and less customer dissatisfaction in the long run. You simply get what you pay for.

A Thinkpad is a business-class machine; it should be supported with business-class service options when possible. I would always skimp elsewhere in an order before I'd choose mail-in service.

Another reason that on-site service leads to less customer dissatisfaction is that you can check the tech's work before they leave, and can usually sort out any impending dissatisfaction with the work on the spot. I'm talking about things like incorrectly reinstalled keyboards, etc. The occasional person may wind up having to mail in a laptop multiple times before a fully correct diagnosis and/or service, which would obviously increase dissatisfaction. Again, you generally get what you pay for.

The reason for the drawn-out, repetitive-sounding sentences from the phone reps is that they're canned, boilerplate phrases they're ordered to say. Lenovo is not the only company to do this. By following scripts, they try to ensure less customer dissatisfaction. For instance, some customers will bristle a bit if the CS rep does not apologize on behalf of the company; hence it is deemed necessary to recite an apology on every call, etc.

Note that one of the people answering negatively on the extremely unscientific, anonymous poll above owns no Thinkpads; another just recently received his/her first one, declared how happy he/she was with the machine, and has reported no problems here on the forums; etc.

 

I bought a W520 Quad-Core i7, 8GB RAM with RAID 0...which is a fairly high end model. After it became sluggish, I checked system logs to find out there was a disk controller failure logged everyday since I've bought it. I called Support to obtain a RMA. Since it was after their 21 day return policy, I was informed I had to pay restocking fee + shipping to return the product. I agreed and asked for the RMA to be sent. They refused to issue one.

Their return policy is only 21 days from date of shipment. This was shipped from CHINA so I already lost 7 - 10 days before I had possession of the product. Then, it was defective upon arrival -- for a high end product, that's just a shameful lack of quality! In trying to obtain a RMA, I was given the run around and quoted restocking fee and shipping charges and then a flat refusal to issue a RMA. The department that handles the "after 21 day" support is very poor quality.

It has been a BIG WASTE OF MONEY, BIG WASTE OF TIME, BIG DISAPPOINTMENT, and VERY FRUSTRATING experience. I have lost money,time and productivity from a VERY POOR quality product. From this, I would NEVER BUY Lenovo again. My first and last purchase. I work in the technology industry and I will gladly warn anyone from buying a Lenovo.

 

@JTRANDALLAS,
You said (in the duplicate thread you made) that the issue arose a few weeks after you received it. Now it was defective upon arrival?

Could it just have been that the disks were defective?

 

b

What of the warranty? Surely you still have enough of the 1-year warranty to get it fixed or was it just not covered?

 

Depends where you are really, I had to wait over a month before IBM UK (which Lenovo still uses) finally relented take my ThinkPad in for repair thanks to the intervention of the Lenovo forums. If I was a company that relies heavily on low downtime then for sure I would be disappointed

I have to admit over here, Dell UK sets a pretty high standard in terms of business warranty. Even the tiniest of faults they're willing to help fix no questions asked, with Lenovo UK it seems that I have to make a real effort to convince that its a manufacturer defect otherwise it seems they're not interested.

 

My face when I clicked the wrong button.

 

What I am seeing is that if I have trouble with my x220 Tablet, I should upgrade to next day onsite prior to calling it in. It's only $29.

 

USA W520 purchase here.

I decided to purchase the Priority Support after reading in this forum that many users were less than satisfied with the basic service. I can report that I am ecstatic with Lenovo Priority Support. Wait times when calling the dedicated phone number are short, the reps speak fluent English and are easy to understand and work with, extremely helpful and knowledgeable, and offer to "remote in" to fix the problem themselves. In the beginning when I first received my W520, I called the regular customer service phone number. After getting frustrated with these reps, I then decided to give the Priority Support line a call. Now when I have any reason to call, I always call Priority Support. I give Priority Support a 9.5 rating!

 

My plan is to upgrade the support should I ever need it.

 

We just had a disappointing (and costly) let down from Lenovo onsite support that we paid to have.
My wife's T500 would not power up. (We tried a new cord...no go).
Called support and tech determined we needed a new system board....so he scheduled a repair guy to show up next day by 1pm (Friday).
On Friday @ 12:30.....I start to get nervous because we had not heard one peep from anyone...(my wife needs to access her quickbooks to make a large business deposit).......so I call support and get the typical 15 min on hold routine (more irritation).
When they finally answer, the support rep tells me the repair tech won't be out til Monday because they had to order the part.......I asked why no one had contacted us to tell us this.......all she could tell me was "Sorry".
I asked if they could have someone show up Saturday (today)...."NO, WE DON'T WORK WEEKENDS".
I asked to speak to a supervisor....put on hold again (more irritation). Five min later same rep comes on and ask if it's ok if the supervisor calls me back because she is tied up on another call...I comply....supervisor never even returns my call......!

I shot off an email describing the incident, our displeasure...and a few demands to make up for their complete communication fail....!

I'll post back to report what washes out of this.