What my Lenovo sales rep told me

[rockefella]

When I placed my order, I did it by phone and was assigned to a Lenovo sales rep. The rep is great : patient, reasonable, honest and above all, knowledgeable. He told me the following:

2007 series is for corporate/educational buyers. It's highly marked up in order to take into account the large volume discounts that corporate/educational buyers get when they order 100s of Thinkpads. Also, Lenovo intentionally doesn't update or change the 2007 series specifications for at least a year so that the ordering process is that much easier for corp/edu buyers.

The TopSeller series is targeted at consumers. The price is lower because Lenovo doesn't usually give consumers bulk discounts. Also, TopSeller specs change as soon as new technology becomes available.

My order, which I placed yesterday, is being held up because the factory is out of 100 gig/7200 rpm hard drives AND windows XP pro packs. As soon as those come back into inventory, Lenovo will start putting my order together. He said it was a little unusual that these parts were out of inventory.

2623DDUs are still experiencing the greatest shipping delays. My custom-built unit will probably ship in under 2 weeks.

Anyway, hope this helps someone.

[aarong]

When I placed my order, I did it by phone and was assigned to a Lenovo sales rep. The rep is great : patient, reasonable, honest and above all, knowledgeable. He told me the following:

2007 series is for corporate/educational buyers. It's highly marked up in order to take into account the large volume discounts that corporate/educational buyers get when they order 100s of Thinkpads. Also, Lenovo intentionally doesn't update or change the 2007 series specifications for at least a year so that the ordering process is that much easier for corp/edu buyers.

The TopSeller series is targeted at consumers. The price is lower because Lenovo doesn't usually give consumers bulk discounts. Also, TopSeller specs change as soon as new technology becomes available.

My order, which I placed yesterday, is being held up because the factory is out of 100 gig/7200 rpm hard drives AND windows XP pro packs. As soon as those come back into inventory, Lenovo will start putting my order together. He said it was a little unusual that these parts were out of inventory.

Anyway, hope this helps someone.

I regret purchasing online; I'd love to have a rep at this point in time as I'm really, really, really not looking forward to the repair depot sending back my T60p without a new screen. What's a Windows XP Pro pack? Do those only come with the 2007 series?

[rockefella]

Hi, sorry about the confusion. I meant to say that Lenovo is short on the Microsoft XP Pro licenses. I can't imagine why that is though.

When I placed my order, I did it by phone and was assigned to a Lenovo sales rep. The rep is great : patient, reasonable, honest and above all, knowledgeable. He told me the following:

2007 series is for corporate/educational buyers. It's highly marked up in order to take into account the large volume discounts that corporate/educational buyers get when they order 100s of Thinkpads. Also, Lenovo intentionally doesn't update or change the 2007 series specifications for at least a year so that the ordering process is that much easier for corp/edu buyers.

The TopSeller series is targeted at consumers. The price is lower because Lenovo doesn't usually give consumers bulk discounts. Also, TopSeller specs change as soon as new technology becomes available.

My order, which I placed yesterday, is being held up because the factory is out of 100 gig/7200 rpm hard drives AND windows XP pro packs. As soon as those come back into inventory, Lenovo will start putting my order together. He said it was a little unusual that these parts were out of inventory.

Anyway, hope this helps someone.

I regret purchasing online; I'd love to have a rep at this point in time as I'm really, really, really not looking forward to the repair depot sending back my T60p without a new screen. What's a Windows XP Pro pack? Do those only come with the 2007 series?

[archer6]

I regret purchasing online; I'd love to have a rep at this point in time as I'm really, really, really not looking forward to the repair depot sending back my T60p without a new screen. What's a Windows XP Pro pack? Do those only come with the 2007 series?

The good news is it's not too late. If you would like, send me a PM here and I will connect you to my rep. He services my business account *multiple machines*.

Archer6

[astro]

Lenovo is short on the Microsoft XP Pro licenses.

That is the biggest load of BS I have ever heard. Are you sure this guy is knowledgeable?

You think Lenovo sits there and goes: "Oh well, we're down to the last 2 licenses from the last batch of 100,000 we ordered from Microsoft last month. I guess some of our PCs are going to have to wait on the production line while we go order so more."

[GomJabbar]

You think Lenovo sits there and goes: "Oh well, we're down to the last 2 licenses from the last batch of 100,000 we ordered from Microsoft last month. I guess some of our PCs are going to have to wait on the production line while we go order so more."

I suppose it would be possible that they could be short of COA stickers to place on the bottom of the ThinkPad. They couldn't ship the ThinkPads without them. It would be rather short-sighted though.

[rockefella]

This is just speculation, but I'm thinking it might be that they're updating the hard drive image with the latest, just released video drivers? I imagine there was some notation on the screen that the rep was just reading from...

[MobileGuru]

Running out of COA stickers can sometimes happen, but it's a pretty rare thing indeed. If the plant gets hit with a huge order from any one of the major geographies, it can consume thousands of those little suckers in a day.

MG.

[archer6]

Recently my rep has been out sick, so I have had to deal with "others". My take on this, is that the individual on the phone in many cases will "make up a story" to fit the scenario at hand. Most probably what the rep "thinks" the customer will accept. This is a very frustrating experience to have, as the more we share information and experiences here on this forum the more I'm learning of the frequency of "story telling" by the very people we would hope to be informed and accurate.

So, the question is: are they truly untrained, or unsupervised, or all of the above?

To make matters worse, my personal experience over the last two months is that more often that not, I get a story teller on the other end of the phone. This is not an "isolated incident" but the result of more than 12 calls. When I ask for escalation, the situation improves but not as much as one would hope...

[aarong]

I regret purchasing online; I'd love to have a rep at this point in time as I'm really, really, really not looking forward to the repair depot sending back my T60p without a new screen. What's a Windows XP Pro pack? Do those only come with the 2007 series?

The good news is it's not too late. If you would like, send me a PM here and I will connect you to my rep. He services my business account *multiple machines*.

Archer6

thank you for the offer; should anything go south in my quest for an acceptable screen for my T60p, I'll take you up on it.

[GomJabbar]

My take on this, is that the individual on the phone in many cases will "make up a story" to fit the scenario at hand. Most probably what the rep "thinks" the customer will accept.

This happens all too often by customer service in many, if not most corporations. I would not put it past Lenovo to do the same. Ahhh...... life in the 21st century (along with automated menus and voice mail).

[torlanglo]

"Anyway, hope this helps someone."

It sure did! I just ordered a 200783U via a phone call to Lenovo. I had already customized the laptop online, but after reading rockefella's story I decided to call in instead. After telling the sales rep what I read here, he gave me a significant discount off the online price.

He was straightforward with me, no storytelling at all.

His initial estimate of delivery time was 3-4 weeks. I asked if there was a particular part that caused the delay, and was told they were out of 1gig ram (I ordered an extra 1gb). After agreeing that I could insert the memory myself, he made the (extra) memory a separate shipment. My system should now be on its way in a few days!

Tor.
+++++++++++

[whitney]

Very good information from the OP. Thanks