Horrible Lenovo / IBM Customer Service

So here is my delimma with IBM, the e-mail i have sent to the manager is listed below and explains the entire situation. Please take some time to read it and post your responses on what you think.



Hello John,

Thanks for calling, I want to explain to you how inconvenient it has been dealing with the some of the Lenovo Sales/Tech Support staff.

First some basic information:

I bought the Lenovo T400 and received it on 09/18/08 order # *****. I'm pretty sure you will be able to find the specs with my order #.

My Problem:

Upon startup, the computer was unable to detect my WWAN BROADBAND card (capitalized because sales/tech/return assumed a WIRELESS card).
I called tech support, they told me it was a software problem and had me remove and re-install the software. This did not solve the problem.

I called again and the tech rep was unable to find the WWAN card uner my BIOS!, which means the card is either dead or not installed! Before, I go any further, let me tell you that I have resolved the problem and everything is working great.....All without Lenovo tech-support, needless to say.

She offer me an EXCHANGE (not a new for a free one as MR SENTHIL at sales support assumes), I agree and she transfers me to sales---to get the refund process started, next they tell me she forgot to note the issues so there is no proof of approval for an exchange.

I'm back to tech support on hold once again, once again transferred to sales after i tell them to specifically note everything down in detail. To my luck I had the pleasure of reaching the most (MUST FOLLOW GUIDELINES WORLD TO WORD) type of person. So he says I never ordered the WWAN card and that I must be mistaken! I tell him I'll take a picture of the configuration on my packaging and send whatever he asks for proof....These are his exact words after I told him to provide proof: "Sir I cannot approve the return because I don't see it on your order, It appears you never ordered it"

So like a little baby I had to make him recite each and every item on the order one by one and VOLA! the WWAN card appears! 20 mins wasted on trying to prove the CUSTOMER wrong! Next he says he needs to check with tech support...again! It seems he was doubting the fact that the tech support had approved an exchange, after all everything was NOTED DOWN on my CASE #*********, which he was able to see.

Next I was transferred to sales to BUY a new laptop first then receive a refund. (Is this your policy?) Salesperson tells me I have to pay extra money for 160GB 7200 RPM hard drive because the original 100GB 7200 RPM is not available anymore. So this is where my problem starts and I tell him to transfer me back to returns.

I arrive at MR Senthril Shankaralingam (REP ID: ZD3)..The epitimay of my reason to file a complaint against your sincere but unhelpful associates (asides from Mr. Senthril Shangaralingam, ofcourse). I ask him, why do I have to pay out of my pocket for mistakes made by your company. He tells me EXACT WORDS "Nothing is free!" I try to explain to him that, It was not my mistake that the laptop was faulty. So why should I pay the extra $65.00 for the 160GB hard drive?

He then argues with me that Lenovo usually charges a re-stocking fee and I should be glad that I'm not being charged the extra 15% for returning the FAULTY MERCHANDIES PROVIDED BY LENOVO.....Ironic right?....YES Extremely!.....So somehow he comes to a conclusion that I want something free in exchange of nothing, (thus the comment in my case) because i'm not willing to pay for the extra 60GB which I donot want on my laptop.

At this point I tell him, first, I shouldn't even be mentioned about re-stocking fees, because CLEARLY, I AM NOT AT FAULT HERE. I also tell him that replace the 160gb with the 100gb from your parts dept, but I am not paying a penny out of my pocket! The gentelmen then confidentally tells me to check and see if I see such a configuration online, because there isn't one. Obviously, his egotistic personality did not understand what I told him to being with!

He says that IBM is unable to fulfill my request and if I want to replace my FAULTY LAPTOP PROVIDED BY IBM, I would have to pay extra 60gb or nothing else can be done! At this point I ask for his FIRST AND LAST name and REP ID# and tell him to send me a test e-mail, (WHICH I HAVE ATTACHED BELOW). I request to file a complaint and finish the call.

TOTAL TIME WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE: 3:30+ hrs
ISSUES RESOLVED: None

My question to you:

Since when does an IBM hold customers accountable for providing a mis-configured product? (in my case paying extra money for the hard drive)...shouldn't such a fee be waived.....If anything, there should be adequate compensation to reflect good customer service by your company, for mistakes on your behalf!

As I told you earlier, I have fixed the problem without tech support, it turns out the WWAN card was never configured to boot during system startup, thus it's inabiliity of being detected as an installed hardware on windows. Simple problem right?.....Cost me 4 Hours of my time and not to mention the frusturation that all this led to.

I hope you understand my situation and please be advised that I mean no personal disrespect to you. Had the problem not been diagnose, I would expect a full exchange with $0.00000000 money to pay from my pocket.

What I request is to speak with Mr Senthril Shankaralingam ID:ZD3 and Mr. Lester Lazaro (fake name??) ID ZX9 and explain him the world of proper customer service in Mr Senthril's case and product knowledge in Mr. Lester's case.

Please keep me updated on your actions, as I have posted this on various forums for other Lenovo customers to see.

SIncerely,
D


Information on the fabulous Sales rep that represents Lenovo (heavy sarcasm):
Senthil Shankaralingam
Sr. Sales Support
Lenovo America Group
1-866-42-THINK (84465) - Ext. - *****

senth****@thinkteamlenovo.com

 

Wow... that support does suck. It's good that you posted this for us to see, so people don't pay extra for extended warranties or something like that.

 

Don't know why you'd want to be bitter over something so small. You got it fixed. Be happy.

 

True, but i filed the complaint when the laptop was "broken". So since the manager contacted me, I wanted to inform him of what happened.

Either ways, I am totally happy with the product itself....no complaints there!

 

Yeah, this is par for the course. I was on the phone with them once, 5 pm rolled around, and they had to get of because it was the end of the day.

SOmeone else made a good point though, pretty much all customer service sucks these days for computers because of the low-profit margin industry it's become.

Be glad yours is fixed. Tomorrow marks the 3 week anniversary of me receiving my computer, and it hasn't worked right. UPS is supposed to be dropping it off today, though, from being fixed...so, we'll see.

All this hastle, and I'd just rather continue using my old laptop for another year at this point.

Also be glad they offered you the ability to return it. I couldn't get them to wave the 15% fee, so I'm stuck with doing a credit card charge back on them, if I decide to return it.

 

yes they almost led me to the breaking point of returning the laptop and never buy IBM again....What was I thinking right?......I have yet to receive a reply from the manager, I'll keep you guys updated on his actions.

Let's see how IBM deals with issues in real-time.

 

Please keep us updated. I hope everything goes well with my service request. Till this point I've had ok support. Not great but okay.

 

Yes, customer support is getting worse and worse across the board (and I am not even talking about technical support)

I've had 3 bad experiences in this week alone.

Lenovo--I ordered 4 laptops on 8/29 to be shipped 9/16. On 9/16, no shipment. OK, it's a delay. I can deal with that. I didn't even call. On 9/19, I get a call from Lenovo (they called me), and told me they were shipping that day. Cool, I think. Good service. I never got a tracking number, so yesterday I called--they didn't ship. They don't know when it will ship. They don't know who called me to tell me it would ship.

ATT DSL. Elderly woman next door cannot send email after email working for months. She calls att help three times and no one will help her, send her to a pay for support website! Check with several other ATT DSL users I know in the area. They also cannot send email. I go over and the problem is not with her setup. Att DSL smtp server SSL handshake function is malfunctioning. I contact ATT DSL to inform them of this and they argue with me despite the proof I send them. I switchback to unsecure port 25...boom, email works.


Quickbooks. Argghh. Trying to set up a simple network for a multi-user quickbooks setup. Network works fine; quickbook, not so much. It works about half the time. First guy I talk to says this version will not work with wireless networks. How come it works half the time? He ignores me and says I should upgrade. I get disconnected. Second person says first guy is full of it. Sends me a half dozen FAQs via email, none of then have anything to do with the very specific error message I am getting.

I solve hundreds of PC problems a week, and only need some simple questions answered, but every single tech support call requires you follow a 15 minute script so they can go over things that aren't an issue. OK, I get that. I have learned to be patient.

The problem with THEM following a script, is they think it means they do not have to listen. Tech support is 90 percent listening.

 

See my post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=303102

Lenovo/IBM's support really sucks. Good products, but the support level is nothing near HP and Dell's business support.

 

It appears that making you pay out of pocket is their policy. I just did the same thing here. They told me that they are not going to charge me a restocking fee and they will allow me 21 days to return the item, but I had to pay out of pocket the upfront charge for the new laptop. The guy I dealt with was friendly enough, but he was definitely trying to upsell me on the replacement.

I think what they should do instead is go ahead and get your credit card information and then if they don't receive the defective laptop within 21 days, then go ahead and charge you. That is a fair policy. Proects the company from losses and gives the consumer ample time to return the defective product.

 

There is no IBM PC's anymore.

Lenovo f.k.a. Legend (Chinese company) bought IBM's personal computing division in 2005. IBM sold the division (no partnership) to Lenovo.

The addition of new series with the "Thinkpad" name and the problems associated with the new models/service is Lenovo.......not IBM. F.Y.I.

 

Well, they bought the division INCLUDING the customer support, R&D, production equipment and so on, as well as the name IBM. I'm not sure for how long they bought he rights to use the IBM name, but they have used it on the Thinkpads up untill this year.

SO, calling it an IBM isn't all that wrong

 

I have read with interest your account of problems with IBM service. I had a Dell laptop that although their tech support would often drive me crazy, I would eventually get my problem resolved at least. I never had to spend a time on repairs in the 4yr period I had the warranty on it.

I did want to mention though for those reading your thread, that I switched to an Apple MacBookPro last winter and have been nothing but happy happy with the tech support from Apple. Even if the phone tech people don't always get things straightened out right away, you always have the option of making an appt in the store for help. I live 10 minutes from an Apple store and I can make an appt within a couple of hours of my call usually, and every time I have brought the computer in, they have straightened out the situation. Really a great way to do things. I wish the other computer companies would follow their lead in that department.

 

You pay for the customer support with Apple's price. I personally do not need any support to help me fix non-hardware issues. I use my warranty just for hardware replacement and such. Thanks for the input though.

 

so, it has been a month since my complaint, and i hav yet to hear from the manager...he emailed me once....and i replied back with and e-mail....now it seems that, when everytime i ask for a status update on the case, he simply ignores my requests.....no feed back WHATSOEVER!, Think I am going to get accidental protection.... i don't want to go through this experience again.

 

Why do you think accident protection will get you any better service?

 

i can understand how hard it is to deal with this, because it isnt really your fault, but u have to understand, it isnt the then sale's rep's fault either, they just work there. i have also had a problem with my t400, it was a software maybe hardware problem, i contacted tech support, they couldnt not help, so i nicely asked the tech guy if i can ask for a exchange, he happily said that yea, i will write it up for me, then i kinda fix my problem the next day and didnt call sales, the tech guy called me to ask if i still need to exchange. ( not bad service) so as i continue trying out my laptop, i got a blue screen of death so i called tech support again and asked for a exchange nicely, the lady said sure. so i called sales the next day, i asked nicely that my laptop is not working very "smoothly" the sales said is not broke so there might be a 15% restocking fee, but he said that he will look into it. so he transfered me to return, again i nicely explained my problem, and the return guy said yea sure i will give u a no charge return, and i asked if i could keep the same config with the new wimax card and a at&t 3G, he say yea i can keep the price and just add 60 dollars more.

key point: i think we as customers to consider that these people who work there as people. they are not boss and they dont have to be nice to us. they can ignore, be mean, act like ***, and make things hard for us. so my take is to treat these people with respect, ask nicely and watch my tone. yea its not my fault that things go bad, but its not theirs (personal) fault too. so if we can all just except this fact, things wouldnt really have to be this bad.

 

none, but if something fails....i don't have to go through the tedious "protocol" in order to get my laptop exchanged.

also "T3A", you make a good point. But i think my problem was being to sincere and nice to these people. The moment that i got the tech support lady, i knew that she hadn't a clue about operating systems or hardware problems. I should have just asked for another person, but I didn't want to be rude and tell her that I don't think she has enough knowledge about the product.

I believe the main problem was me calling on a Friday evening!....seriously! The salesman seemed eager to get rid of me.