Thinkpads Forum

OCT 2ND... UPDATE: NOW OFFICIALLY FOUR MONTHS SINCE ESCALATED TO CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, AND ANOTHER WEEK OF NO RETURNED PHONE CALLS... STILL NO FINAL RESOLUTION -- COMMUNICATION REMAINS NON EXISTANT

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EDIT #2


Oct 5th:

Totally Frustrated, I finally called my "customer satisfaction" rep's manager..... only to learn that my "customer satisfaction guy" had just taken off for three (3) weeks... leaving no email auto-respond, no answering message, and NO "CASE HAND-OFF".....

BUT "good news" .... my case.... which had already been on this guys desk for FOUR MONTHS, and would have been there for FIVE by the time he got back from wherever-- leaving me completely in the dark for three more weeks.... was resolved to my satisfaction in one (1) phone call with his manager.

Virtually an instantanious response

So, To all who are experiencing this kind of customer service fiasco.... I wish to God I would have asked for the guys manager three months ago....


========================================


Hi....

This started life as "T43p Nightmare -> T60p upgrade

Short version.... a T43p mobo blowout --and EIGHT MONTHS NOW OF CORRECTING THE ISSUE

------ The start of the saga

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... +nightmare

---------------------------------

I'd love to rant at this guy.... IMO, he's the WORST customer satisfaction specalist I've ever seen.... I've experienced more concern over a $5 hamburger that was over cooked than being without a $3000 computer I bought to earn a living with --for EIGHT MONTHS... It's a big hit and *major* inconvienence

And with the response.... IMO.... I'm talking a SERIOUSLY bad fit between this guys personality and his job function

So.....Given I'd like to wrap this issue up before I'm 100.... and this guy
* mis represented what he was going to do for me
* doesn't take my phone calls,
* takes his time responding to emails (like a week or more), and never when promised
*completely ignores my requsts for specific information --
* and basically behaves as the "paper cut on his pinky is a LOT more important to him than the fact I've taken a major beating financially, and a buttload of frustration = for the last eight months= by choosing Lenovo's product.... and the main issue for him is --my screaming in pain and frustration is annoying to him

"Customer Satisfaction Specialist"

I was very cool with the T43p problem, as long as it was a manufacturer failure..... But once it got escaleted to him, and he sent it back to me from the SWAT team with TWO NEW FATAL ERRORS.... we started a three month string of COUNTLESS HUMAN ERRORS.... one after another after another.... and total misrepresentations of truth, and a callous disregard for my concerns and issues

"Customer Satisfaction" Indeed.

What I want to know is..... What Director should I talk to about this guy...I feel I need to jump over this guys immediate super.....

As a consumer of Lenovo's product.... I don't think it's in their interest to have him working for them --at least not in his current capacity.... I've gone from "hey, [censored] happens, lets just get it fixed" to totally and completely outraged by this persons treatment of me..... -and it's ALL after he got his hands on my case.

Looked for a forum here on this topic, but didn't find one... I'm pretty annoyed right now, so I'm hoping for some "cool head, but experienced and effective" feedback

Thanks

LOL, I have EXACTLY the same experience as you with my T42.

I own an R40, a T42 and now a T60p. I got the T60p because, after almost a year of sending my T42 back back and forth to Lenovo, only to get it back with more problems each and every time, I finally decided to just relegate the T42 to backup status and get a T60p.

Good luck to you, but I can tell you that Lenovo customer service is a BIG step down from IBM.

My T42 case was escalated to RAID, and then to the Office of the President of Lenovo. I'm not kidding. I was told 2 repairs ago that, if the next time I sent the T42 back to Lenovo and it wasn't fixed, they would just give me a new T42. That turned out to be a big fat lie. The Office of the President at Lenovo told me to send my T42 back yet again. When I asked, well what if you don't fix it this time, then what? They said, we'll just ask you to send it back again. So then, what was the point of my spending hours on the phone to GET to the Office of the President?

You just can't make this up.

I'll still keep buying Thinkpads, because I still think they're the best. But I've stopped recommending them to my friends, colleagues and family. Not after the dis-service I've received on my T42. As for my T42, I've given up and given it to my wife and she uses it to play games and surf. I absolutely must have a reliable laptop for work and the T42 has been a lemon since the day I bought it. I've lost more money on lost productivity than the purchase price itself, at this point.

I probably sent my T43 into "Ez-Serv" depot 10 times. In that time my motherboard was replaced 3 or 4 times. Lost count. Anyways, emailed Sam on 3 seperate occasions, finally got a new T60.

If you haven't sent him an email, give it a try.

https://www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/email-sjp.pl

Hope that helps.

Heh I love to hear people say how downhill things have gone since Lenovo took over the business, especially when all the same products, engineers, factories, employees, processes and escalation paths have remained exactly the same.



MG.

MobileGuru wrote:Heh I love to hear people say how downhill things have gone since Lenovo took over the business, especially when all the same products, engineers, factories, employees, processes and escalation paths have remained exactly the same.



MG.

Yeah, I've heard that argument alot in this forum. Sounds nice in theory. But the fact is, it's new management now. The division got sold for a reason, its bottom line was underperforming. New management bought with the idea that they can increase profit margins.

When dealing with Lenovo customer service, I noticed that at the level just below the Lenovo Office of the President, it was still an IBM guy. He told me that he had new guidelines issued by Lenovo that he now had to follow. Basically, he couldn't give me a new replacement T42 unless I reported what he called 3 major system failures in a 6 month period. Well I've had my mobo replaced 2x and my monitor replaced 1x. So what the hell qualifies as a major system failure?

Here's the short of it. Lenovo is telling the old IBM folk to tighten things up. That includes no replacements even when customers have Thinkpads that are stuck in customer support hell. And THAT is a Lenovo management decision.

The organization is IBM, but the boss is now Lenovo, and they're calling the shots. My guess: Lenovo has got an army of management consultants and instituting changes to improve profits. Some of that is affecting the customer service dept. And I have had first hand experience with that.

I'm not flaming Lenovo. In fact, I'm seriously about to order another Thinkpad. But c'mon, let's stop with the Pollyana groupthink propaganda.

rosemarycane wrote:I probably sent my T43 into "Ez-Serv" depot 10 times. In that time my motherboard was replaced 3 or 4 times. Lost count. Anyways, emailed Sam on 3 seperate occasions, finally got a new T60.

If you haven't sent him an email, give it a try.

https://www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/email-sjp.pl

Hope that helps.

Rosemary, thanks for that tip. I've already spent too much time on this issue though, spending hours on the phone with Lenovo. I'm just going to write the T42 off, cut my losses, and spend my time making more money from my business. I've literally spent $5,000 to $10,000 of my manhours dealing with Lenovo customer support, when I could've used that time to work and make enough money to buy four T60ps.

I have probably wasted half that time myself doing factory restores, contacting DHL etc. Its not fun. However, in my opinion, it is preferable to trying to contact Toshiba, Sony, or Averatec (all previous laptops) and getting any kind of "customer support". In the end Lenovo is still a cut above the rest.

rockefella wrote:

rosemarycane wrote:I probably sent my T43 into "Ez-Serv" depot 10 times. In that time my motherboard was replaced 3 or 4 times. Lost count. Anyways, emailed Sam on 3 seperate occasions, finally got a new T60.

If you haven't sent him an email, give it a try.

https://www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/email-sjp.pl

Hope that helps.

Rosemary, thanks for that tip. I've already spent too much time on this issue though, spending hours on the phone with Lenovo. I'm just going to write the T42 off, cut my losses, and spend my time making more money from my business. I've literally spent $5,000 to $10,000 of my manhours dealing with Lenovo customer support, when I could've used that time to work and make enough money to buy four T60ps.

That's where I'm at..... I got the new machine --after wasting 2 months with the guys in Atlanta (who are great) trying to diagnois the problem.....

But now..... this has dragged on for * months..... and I've been paying my credit card all that time for NOTHING.....

It may be "the same team".... but it's not the same management philosophy.....

this is --"make sure all the pain of a Lenovo failure is borne by the customer who bought the product".....

Even if we repeatedly F*ck up for a YEAR straight --and the customer suffers a major financial hit (and enormous amount of frustration and wasted time) from not having a COMPUTER HE USES TO EARN HIS LIVING WITH --give them as little as possible..... GIVD THEM NOTHING IS THE GOAL --we already have their money --so lets spend FIVE TIMES THAT, trying to fix the [censored] thing, and totally piss them off.

On the other hand.... I had an extended warrenty on a Canon Camera that was due to expire in a week.... On the settings dial, Canon had just painted the icons.... which wore off over time....

So I took it in.... said "camera works great --but this is a manufacturing defect --because I can't se what the settings are...

And --NO PROBLEM-- GO PICK OUT A NEW CAMERA.... so in 15 minutes, I turned a three year old Canon S50 (5 mg.pix, 3x zoom) into a new Canon S3IS..... (6 mg.pix, 12x zoom, image stabalizer, etc)

BIG upgrade.... Great new camera.... absolutely no hassle whatsoever..... and all that wsa wrong was the painted icons were rubbed off..... other than that --perfect.

THAT is customer service..... This was with "Best Buy"

I immediately spent another two hundreds bucks with them, on the spot, and I'm buying a new refridge and stove next week.... I support organizations that support me --not ones that squeeze and screw me.

Too bad.... I love Thinkpads.... But this whole experience has moved into the "totally Blows" catagory

Is it too late to do any kind of charge back with your credit card company? Call them up and ask about it. Obviously you did not get what you paid for.

carbon_unit wrote:Is it too late to do any kind of charge back with your credit card company? Call them up and ask about it. Obviously you did not get what you paid for.

I dunno..... I could check.... But we are past 3/4 of a year now..... and I really don't want to start from scratch.... I have other things to do in life besides constantly set up computers.... I don't get paid for that... I get paid for using them to create plans for buildings

I've got a T60p 94U now as a replacement (nice machine --but with just a gig of RAM, XP lives in the swap file --plus it's got one of those noisy Segate drives.... grinding all the time....

Remember when IBM made really quiet drives? I used to buy them exclusively --because Seagates sounded like a jet engine.

and 2 gigs isn't enough for this machine, not for how I use it for what I do.... 32bit XP can see 2.8 gigs..... I want it all.

If this "Customer Satisfaction" guy would

• (1) give me a 2 gig stick, so the machine had three gigs total
  (2) give me a steep discount on all the periperals I need to replace (advanced mini dock, hot swap swap battery and drive, etc) --like 40% off full retail...
  (3) and CONFIRM that my existing extended --next day, on site-- warranty was transfered to the new machine... cause I'm DONE with shipping this thing back and forth.

I'd be OK... At least I'd feel Lenovo gave a [censored] about me, and my suffering, and was trying to make it right..... right now.... I feel totally the opposite.... Lenovo would like nothing better than to kep my money and have me die, never solving the problem with *their* product failure and constant human error.

If he would have done this months ago.... I would have been pleased, not [censored] as hell, but certainly willing to accept this disaster....

now I'm actively looking to go over his head and contact the Dir of US Marketing, the VP or marketing..... someone who can actually DO SOMETHING BESIDES BLOW SMOKE UP MY [censored], WHEN IT'S CONVENIENT FOR HIM......

I just bought a second T60p and it ships out next week. It's a 2007-92U. It's basically almost identical to my current T60p which is now my primary computer. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that this new T60p is as good as my current T60. I plan to use it as a backup to my current T60p because I never want to be left without a working computer again. I'm an attorney, and if I suffer downtime like that again, I could get sued for malpractice by my clients.

My wife is now using the T42 to surf and chat. After the replacement of 2 motherboards, the screen, 2 hard drives, the keyboard, the DVD drive, hours spent on the phone with Lenovo, days reinstalling Windows and drivers and programs, the T42 is truly a Frankenstein. I shudder every time I look at it.

Anyway, the T42 experience has been frustrating in the extreme, but I'll keep buying Thinkpads because I still think they're the best out there. I just hope Lenovo doesn't screw up the Thinkpad legenedary service too much more.

whomung wrote:

carbon_unit wrote: If this "Customer Satisfaction" guy would

• (1) give me a 2 gig stick, so the machine had three gigs total

FWIW Lenovo customer support did offer me a free 1 gig stick for all my troubles with my T42. Unfortunately, I already had 1.5 gigs in there. Besides, I'd really just prefer the T42 to work properly.

rockefella wrote:I just bought a second T60p and it ships out next week. It's a 2007-92U. It's basically almost identical to my current T60p which is now my primary computer. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that this new T60p is as good as my current T60. I plan to use it as a backup to my current T60p because I never want to be left without a working computer again. I'm an attorney, and if I suffer downtime like that again, I could get sued for malpractice by my clients.

My wife is now using the T42 to surf and chat. After the replacement of 2 motherboards, the screen, 2 hard drives, the keyboard, the DVD drive, hours spent on the phone with Lenovo, days reinstalling Windows and drivers and programs, the T42 is truly a Frankenstein. I shudder every time I look at it.

Anyway, the T42 experience has been frustrating in the extreme, but I'll keep buying Thinkpads because I still think they're the best out there. I just hope Lenovo doesn't screw up the Thinkpad legenedary service too much more.

Exactly.... being without your computer can totally F*ck up your life.... so, like you, I bought another machine --NOT A THINKPAD

It's not as nice (I love Thinkpads), but it's plenty good enough......

The T60p they finally replaced my T43p with is a very nice machine.... Not the "TOP OF THE LINE" I was twice promised by the customer satisfaction guy.... (once in writing).... but it's nice enough

My gripe is that --like you-- I bought the original machine to use to make a living... and it's been 8 MONTHS, and it's still not resolved....(To be fair, part of which is on me.... )

And the biggest chunk of frustration has been since it got "escalated" to a "customer satisfaction specalist" and the SWAT Team (who sent it BACK to me broken --in two new ways) ...

That's when it really turned into a sucky experience.... this guy broke every promise he made to me..... down to "I'll call you tuesday"...... Terrible communication... terrible

I was lucky.... I was going to give my 4 year old toshiba notebook away, but hadn't packed it yet.... when the T43p started going bad, it was still here (not 3000 miles away, like I thought it was going to be).... so.... for the last 8 months.... I had a VERY OLD computer to work on....

Like I said..... Given I was destined to spend another 8 months using my old computer --I would have suffered less and experienced far less frustration and wasted time if I had just burned the T43p money in the street.... and bought one now....

And the guy who's job it is to make me a "happy Lenovo customer" is apparently committed to doing everything he can possibly do to lowball me, and treat me with an insulting level of non-concern.

I love Thinkpads.... But this level of callous disregard for what I've been through due to my choice of their product really sucks.

i had a bad experiance with lenovo as well but i hope that their build quality is not going to go as much down as their cutomer service because the first thinkpad that i just bought is going to be the last one.

mattbiernat wrote:i had a bad experiance with lenovo as well but i hope that their build quality is not going to go as much down as their cutomer service because the first thinkpad that i just bought is going to be the last one.

Like I said in the original thread... anyone can have a manufacturing error..... it was a pain in the but, and a HUGE time suck, but dealing with Atlanta Tech Support was great.... Everything was cool, if we wanted to try something... it was here (Atlanta to SF) often in less than 12 HOURS

It really went to hell when it was escalated up to a "customer satisfaction specalist"..... That's when I really noticed my sphincter getting raw.... Human error after human error.... by the specialists.....

Arrggghhhh

Should a jump over this guys head or not.???....

I don't think he has my intrests as his customer at heart --and that's not going to be good for lenovo in the long run...... lets say this guy has what 200 cases???? If he runs them all like he dealt with me..... that's gona be 200 more unhappy Lenovo customers.... and unhappy people [censored] and moan....

welll.... it's now been four (4) MONTHS since my problem was escalted to the "Customer Satisfaction Specalist" --and another WEEK just went by of him not returning my phone calls --so I'm still in the dark, with no end in sight

I'm beginning to feel like he's just totally blowing me off, hoping I'll just go away..... And it's really getting on my nerves

BUMP

Just to put this back up with the T43p nightmare story..... The meaningful edits are on top.... but the thread is informative

Sounding a bit more civilized would probably garner more credibility for you. If you had spoken to the CS in the way you currently write, he or she would probably ignore you or hope that you go away. As well, you should be pleased you got a brand new T60p to avail you of your problems. Other computer manufacturers would never do that. Asking for more, like a 2GB stick as well, is just ridiculous. Sure, the CS may have made some mistakes, but that is no reason to treat them like they're nothing. Also, please don't bump up a thread just so that it stays on top. If it warrants being made into a sticky, it will be. Your "nightmare" story is, fortunately, not reflective of actual Lenovo service.

P.S. I contacted a CS for a hard drive replacement a while ago, and it was shipped to me the next day. So far, I myself haven't seen any degradation in service.

pphilipko wrote:Sounding a bit more civilized would probably garner more credibility for you. If you had spoken to the CS in the way you currently write, he or she would probably ignore you or hope that you go away. As well, you should be pleased you got a brand new T60p to avail you of your problems. Other computer manufacturers would never do that. Asking for more, like a 2GB stick as well, is just ridiculous. Sure, the CS may have made some mistakes, but that is no reason to treat them like they're nothing. Also, please don't bump up a thread just so that it stays on top. If it warrants being made into a sticky, it will be. Your "nightmare" story is, fortunately, not reflective of actual Lenovo service.

P.S. I contacted a CS for a hard drive replacement a while ago, and it was shipped to me the next day. So far, I myself haven't seen any degradation in service.

r
Dude.... it was so much more than that..... seriously

and I don't care if it's "reflective" or not.... it still happened

And --like you-- I'm used to getting things from Atlanta, and even CS in NY within 12 hours...... not FOUR MONTHS!!!!

12 hours response vs FOUR MONTHS of basically being mislead and ignored

So..... Just because *you* didn't get boiling water thrown in your face doesn't mean it doesn't happen......

("reflective" I love that..... )

gee Jeffery Dhalmer didn't kill EVERYONE he ever met.... so lets not talk about the 20 or so he did kill.... because it's not "reflective", so their lives are evidently irrelivent to you

i mean.... it's not reflective of Jeffs actions... it's not he killed EVERYONE he dealt with.... so cut him some slack, and watch your dirty mouth.... yeah..... that's the ticket.... "he seemed like such a Nice Boy"

When the case first got escalated, the CS guy commented about how calm I was.... and I was --it took FOUR MONTHS OF HIM [censored] UP CONSTANTLY before I got this ticked off.....

Seriously.... he's in the wrong job.... his boss fixed the whole thing in 4 minutes

I didn't spend $3000 so Lenovo could spend the next year practicing building and repairing computers at my personal expense.... While my business was screwed up, and I had to buy ANOTHER computer (HP) just to have one to use while Lenovo dragged it's feet trying to learn how to do the simple --"I pay for a computer that works //you give me one that actually works" dance

I wanted the Thinkpad for ME.... not them....

Wait till it happens to you, and lasts this long beforebeing resolved (eight months --no working computer --just regular monthly payments and endless human error.

and we'll see how happy you are, and how nice your language is

Till then.....