Which has better business customer service?

Need to buy a laptop. Scared by so many bad stories.
So in general, which one is better? Dell, Hp or Lenovo?

 

depends on where you live, and what sort of customer you are... a small company or a large company.

 

Depends on on-site vs depot type as well. But I think HP has good standard warranties (3 years) in the US. My roommate had good experience with HP via their customer support chat and their on-site technician.

 

I've heard HP's business support is very good. I haven't dealt with any of them, so I can't say for certain.

 

I should add that I have had pretty good support from Lenovo via the depot. The only down sites for lenovo support for me (in personal experience) is the language barrier when you call and get India.

 

I've had great service with Dell business, but can't really comment on Lenovo or HP since I've never used their business support.

 

I had outstanding support from IBM a few years back, when my T43 required service after being dropped, and another time for a motherboard issue. The had overnight boxes to me the next day, and had the repairs completed within a day of receiving the computer. I was thoroughly impressed. On the flipside, after the warranty was up, they wouldn't even accept the laptop for servicing if I paid them which I found frustrating, as it was difficult to find a repair shop versed in dealing with Thinkpads whose capabilities were a known quantity.

 

Warranty departments for Thinkpad have changed quite a lot from few years ago. I recommend that the OP get the Onsite warranty, this will be the most effective and you can track the repair and the quality of repair directly.

 

For business models, they are all about the same.

The Dell and HP workstations do come with a better base warranty than their Thinkpad counterparts, you'll have to pay extra to upgrade it.

Personally, I've dealt with both HP and Lenovo customer service and was satisfied with both. Though it is a bit annoying how Lenovo pretty much forces you to call in. At least I could still get through to Atlanta at 12am EST.

 

I'd second that.

 

Dell Enterprise has high quality tech support, fast on site support, and is all US based. No call centers in foreign countries. Also, with Dell you dont get the push back that you do from Lenovo customer service on issues and the sales process is not dodgy, For a NB still would go with TP but desktops and all other wquipment its Dell. If the NB products converge in quality/feature set and innovation would choose Dell for the whole enterprise or SMB.

 

Dell Enterprise will bend over backwards if you are a large business customer. My friend had a broken Dell 20 inch monitors, where the warranty has just expired, he called up Dell normal service line, they politely told him that there is nothing that Dell can do.

And so i told him try to contact Dell using the company official Email, they will probably work out a deal, and 3 hours after the email was sent, the customer service manager from Dell called back. He said that he was sorry that my friend's Dell LCD had broken and he offered to send my friend a refurbished 2408WFP monitor as a gesture of goodwill, which is pretty good considering his broken LCD is 5 years old.

 

I'm buying it for myself. I just don't want put myself in trouble fighting to get something fixed in case something happened. I really like W510 (well if it comes with 880m), but if lenovo really sucks a lot in support, I might have to look for others. I don't have a big company to back me up.

Buy the on site warranty? That's kind of a little more expensive.

 

With Lenovo and HP you get a lot of pushback and nasitness over legitimate problems. Your best bet for smooth operation of your hardware is to buy through Dell Enterprise, through their employee program. I'm not kidding. There is no pushback, no low level clerk waiting to go to Burger King for lunch deciding your fate. No person with a little more than a HS education waiting to get off work so they can go watch the Montell Williams show or Riki Lake or other trailer trash/ghetto TV or get thier nails done handing your case or chewing bubble gum talking to you. Its repulsive. If you like the Latitude line over TP, Dell is the way to go. It's not just the hardware to factor in but each of us places a different weight on importantace with respect to customer service and support and the hardware itself. With Dell you will get Fortune 500 level support as an EPP customer. SMB is also just as good IMO.

 

Like what exactly?

My own personal experiences have been great with Lenovo. I had three great experiences just last year with Lenovo customer service. They shipped me a new keyboard free when I was in Pakistan, where they don't even have a warranty center. They repaired my W500 free even after the warranty had expired and left not a single iota of dust on it. They cleaned the screen for me and got rid of a very stubborn spot stain. They gave me a discount on a WWAN card simply because I forgot to add one to my configuration. They price matched after I had already paid and received my W500.

They were always extremely patient and polite with me on the phone. I haven't had a bad experience yet and don't predict having one either.

However, one thing I find unique about Lenovo is that their customer service is the most variable amongst their reps. One rep will be willing to give you the sun, moon and the stars while another won't even know that IBM started the Thinkpad.

I feel like I received a lot more runaround with Dell when I had an Inspiron in 2002-- that damn thing still works though, so I do owe them some credit as well.

 

Dell home customer service is generally terrible. Your lenovo experience sounds way above and beyond what most experiences are like in the US. You're fortunate.

 

I've always considered myself extremely lucky with Lenovo's service. I've read some horror stories so I still keep my fingers crossed every time I call.

(It might just be that the Indian call center is hooking up their fellow southeast asian )

 

I may have been a little too harsh in my evaluation. But as the previous poster pointed out its like playing roulette in terms of the type of service you get. There is a much higher level of inddiference versus Dell though and its fair to state so in my experience. I still exchange Christmas cards with some of Dell's people they provided such great service and responsiveness but this is for Enterprise customers not "Home". I did call the "Home" tech support once and the level of support was diferent from Enterprise for sure. Having said that Dell has chat support which is great and they are responsive. Have never received "push back" ever. Also at least with Dell customer service and even sales you call is nor routed to Aghanistan or some other third world sewer.

 

I have personally had great experience with both HP and Lenovo customer service. With HP, I ordered a laptop (about two years ago) and I opend it up, and realized that I wanted a Thinkpad instead. I called up HP customer service, and told them that I wanted to send back my new computer. They very politely said no problem, and asked it they could knock another $100 off the price of that laptop if I wanted to keep it. I told them that my mind as already set on getting a Thinkpad instead. So, they took the laptop back no questions asked, without a restocking fee as well ! I was very impressed with HP's customer service.
With Lenovo, I've only had to deal with them a few times, mainly to call for status updates on my ordered laptops (T61 and an X301). Every time I've called Lenovo, they were nothing but polite, and very quick to answer my questions.
So, all in all, I would highly recommend BOTH HP and Lenovo for thier sales, and customer support.
Just my .02 cents.
Mike

 

The call goes to India, not Afghanistan (hard to believe but yes, they are actually two different places).

And here's a picture of an Indian call center, since you've obviously never seen one:



Here's one of an American call center:



But yeah, you're right, one is obviously a third world sewer. Appreciate you bringing that to our attention.

 

I think I recognize the first picture from an article I've read at some point .

 

Yup not a surprise, a lot of work other than the call center goes on in India. They're responsible for a major part of Lenovo's ad campaign as well.

 

most of the call that originates from Australia for Lenovo sales go to China, while the sale support side seems to go to either India or Malaysia (from the accent of people i think it is Malaysia).

While the technical warranty phone support in Australia is run through IBM and is Australian based, and i know the name of most their staffs working there.