Lenovo (Toronto) sales staff model avaialability quotes

[aamsel]

I ordered an X60s this week with current status of "packing", which was a web-order.
I fully expect my X60s "packing" status to slide to "backordered" or some other status any day now, and not actually ship.
SHOULD IT SHIP soon, I have other questions such as:
Why are all the Lenovo (Toronto) salespeople quoting much longer ship dates? They refused to take orders for an X60 or T60 when I called, so I placed this web-order.
Are they being instructed to sell remaining X40/41 T42/43 stock only?
My feeling is that two people making availability inquiries for the same model within a few minutes of each other should be quoted approximately the same ship dates.
Would that not seem reasonable?
Yet, it does not seem to happen that way:
I called Lenovo 3 times in 20 minutes one day last week, and asked for ship dates for the same model, and was quoted a range of 6 to 14 weeks!!!
Don't they have regular sales meetings so that they can all quote the same information to customers?
(14 weeks would be a rediculous length of time. Nobody is going to order a notebook that is more than 2 months out for a delivery date.)
The salespeople are all extremely nice people to talk to, in my experience.
I am only commenting on the information that they are passing on to customers.
If they don't know when an item will ship, why can't they say that?
Why are they compelled to quote a range of weeks, even if it is totally incorrect?
I ordered the X60s online just to see when I actually receive it.
If you read my posts, you will find that I rarely make negative comments.

Am I alone in these feelings, or have others experienced similar frustrations???

Just my opinion and thoughts only.
I have always loved IBM's products, and have nothing but positive thoughts about the product line.

Andrew

[lophiomys]

IMHO this is a commonly practiced strategy, which serves to maximise profit.
Managers try to minimise production costs and move the entrepreneurs risk
of production towards customers waiting time. While keeping up the price.
Products which are annouced as "ready-for-sale-in-your-next-online-shop" are assemebled only after your order.

On top of that nice sales/support people try to give you nice answers.
(Who cares about proper information?)

As long as customers will not emancipate themselves, and will not clearly
communicate what they want, the big coroporations will keep looking after themselves.

E.g. do negotiate a delivery date for your Thinkpad, and make them pay for every day of delay.
))

[donking!]

How do you negotiate a delivery date and make them pay? Won't they just say: We can't give you a precise date? And then whey I say, well I won't buy it then. They'll say, okay call back when you're ready.

[JaneL]

How do you negotiate a delivery date and make them pay? Won't they just say: We can't give you a precise date? And then whey I say, well I won't buy it then. They'll say, okay call back when you're ready.

That's pretty much it unless you're buying them by the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If anyone thinks their single unit purchase is more important than a delivery of several hundred or thousand units, they're deluding themselves. Even large businesses get caught when a larger, more valuable buyer wants the same thing, and there's a limited supply. I had it happen to me in the middle of a 1000-unit rollout of desktops when the US government placed an order for multiple thousand units to be delivered in x number of days. Channel went dry in a heartbeat.