Recent Christmas Order - My Experience

[techflavor]

I always see new threads about people complaining about Lenovo taking over IBM's PC division. Most people are worried about less quality, poor customer service, etc.

I would like to share my most recent purchase with Lenovo...

So it's December 15 and I'm at work about to leave for the evening. My boss comes into my office and says he needs me to do some late Christmas shopping. He tells me he wants to order a T60 with best specs for his son in college.

Now remember it's 5 o'clock. After picking the model, I call my account rep--she doesn't answer but she is in the office... must be on the other line. I leave a message with my purchase info and request a quote so I could make the purchase. I leave the office, get home, and go to a friends house. Around 7:00pm, I get a call on my cell from our account rep whom is putting together the order. I made sure to express my URGENCY for the laptop since it will be for a Christmas present.

Monday when I get to work, I finish payment and see the estimated ship date to be mid Jan. (as expected when getting a ThinkPad); however, I really wanted it for Christmas.

Our account rep. spent countless hours pushing the order through different departments so it would be shipped from the US, not China.

The package left from one of their centers here in the US on Friday morning (like 2am), instead of mid Jan., AND arrived that evening. Talk about Christmas delivery...

Now that is what I call SERVICE WITH A SMILE.

I highly doubt it goes like this for everyone; however, it just reminds you to keep a positive attitude about the whole situation. Some reps will really go out of their way to please a customer!

This isn't my only positive experience with Lenovo. I've actually purchased 20+ machines in the last year and all have been excellent transactions. Almost every single machine was shipped way before the "estimated" delivery date and came in perfect condition.

[NS]

That's why i said it depends on the country, state and area you are living in.

IBM/Lenovo in singapore is good and sometimes bad, but mostly i encountered good service from them. It depends on their mood and they have mood swing changes.

[rleo25]

Anyway... they are getting better every day, it seems that all worries about quality, service and merchandising are cleared now, and Lenovo is marching in the correct direction, no doubt Thinkpads are the best notebooks in the world!!! I am wondering what new models are going to appear in 2007... Let´s wait Las Vegas next expo show...

[brainpicker]

It's good to hear SOMEONE has had a great shipping experience. I have not, though things might have changed in the year or so since I finally decided not to purchase what isn't already in someone's warehouse in the USA. Not to be picky, but perhaps the number of Thinkpads you have purchased from this rep in the resent past had an influence on the amount of work done to work your order within your timeframe? I hope not, but I can't help thinking it played a BIG part.

- Yak

[pianowizard]

perhaps the number of Thinkpads you have purchased from this rep in the resent past had an influence on the amount of work done to work your order within your timeframe?

That's an interesting possibility. Also, I have heard that whether one is ordering a preconfigured or a customized machine makes a huge difference. Most of the serious shipping delays posted on this forum have been for customized Thinkpads, although I recall one instance where a preconfigured T43 advertised as being "ready to ship immediately" turned out to be missing a wireless card, and shipping was delayed multiple times. The guy was fed up and canceled the order.

[Ken Fox]

perhaps the number of Thinkpads you have purchased from this rep in the resent past had an influence on the amount of work done to work your order within your timeframe?

That's an interesting possibility. Also, I have heard that whether one is ordering a preconfigured or a customized machine makes a huge difference. Most of the serious shipping delays posted on this forum have been for customized Thinkpads, although I recall one instance where a preconfigured T43 advertised as being "ready to ship immediately" turned out to be missing a wireless card, and shipping was delayed multiple times. The guy was fed up and canceled the order.

I think that was me. It was for a T43 sold by a telephone rep, not off the website. Further dealings with that particular rep convinced me that he was either not playing with a full deck or was misleading me. In the end I didn't care which and canceled the order.

Subsequently, I found/realized I had a saved cart for a somewhat different configuration (with a DVDRW instead of a CDRW, but also with a shorter, 1 yr vs. a 3 year warranty). I decided to order that on the internet and the ship date changed a couple of times and then it stabilized; at a certain date BEFOREHAND, i.e. it said 12/27/2006 but it was already 1/3/07, or somesuch. I then called up the customer service # and rep I spoke to told me that for some reason the order had gone through but had not been transmitted to the warehouse. He said it would take a few more days but now they WOULD get it out as he had instructed them to transmit the order to the warehouse.

What happened was that the laptop shipped immediately, the same day as when I'd talked to the rep.

Some of those reps ARE good. The problem is getting connected to one of them.

By the way, I like the T43 a lot and it does not suffer from noticeable fan noise, at least not to me. I would buy the same laptop, over, especially for the $899 I paid with Fatwallet 7% rebate, with 2ghz processor and SXGA+ screen.

[RUSH2112]

I've only ordered one computer through Lenovo direct (And the IBMs I have had before were mostly used or refurb, and all through ebay).

My experience was pretty good. I ordered my X60s during the final days of the back to school sale ($700 off - $1799 instead of $2499). I placed the order online on 7/28, they gave me an estimated ship date of 8/21. I figured three weeks was actually not bad considering the number of people that must have been grabbing these at this sale price. I was afraid, however, that based on what I was reading that they would push it back. Not so, shipped right on schedule, and was here from china 2 days later.

Then at one point, I needed new restore cd's (a failed partitioning left my file system all messed up, and I didnt have a set of restore discs). I called and they overnighted printed discs, no problem.

I do think that they REALLY should keep a better inventory (its kinna sad that I was *happy* to have my computer shipped in 3 weeks). Look at Apple - 99.9% of the time, the ir stuff ships in 24 hours.

Lenovo has a really good service model, all they need is an inventory. Then they can use the little phrase "out of stock" rather than making people wait 2 or 3 months. I know there are some people being pushed back 3+ months for X60t's.