Random Musings

I had ranted about the hard time that I had with Lenovo, when my Netbook had some problems, and it was impossible to get service from Lenovo.

I was extremely upset and I had gone and shared these emotions across multiple social media platforms. Besides this blog post, I had posted on my Facebook page, tweeted extensively about it, and also tweeted to many specific Lenovo accounts, both from India as well as outside India. And what happened after that?

I had a whole host of responses to the Facebook update and my tweets. From friends and others who saw the tweets. And ALL of them, bar none, either sympathized and encouraged me to go to consumer court or thereabouts, or added their own sorry tales, working with Lenovo.

I figured that the brand selection had been wrong!!

There were other responses to the Facebook update. Two of my Facebook friends had good connections inside Lenovo, and offered to put up my case to the higher levels at Lenovo. And which they did.

Soon enough, on the one side, I got an email that my case was being attended to, on priority, and I also got a phone call from Bangalore. A person calling from the company asked me to give them one more chance to repair the machine.

I had been quite clear that I did not want more experimentation on my netbook, and I had demanded that the machine be replaced or I be given a full refund.

This person from Bangalore said that he had understood the details of the matter, and he needed someone to get only about 15 minutes with the machine, and it will be fixed. I agreed to give them one last chance to work on the PC, under the condition that should it now not be settled, than I only want a replacement or refund. He stuck his neck out and agreed to my condition.

Sure enough, the person came by next day, and sure enough, he fixed the Netbook, in a matter of a few minutes too!! And he needed no CD or DVD that the other person was frantically looking for and failing to get!

So the Lenovo Netbook is back in working condition. On email, the company asked me to now write a good feedback!! That was of course, high expectations! I was on the verge of going to consumer redressal forums, and if they saved me a trip there, it certainly did not merit a ‘good feedback’ now! And I told her in so many words!

Having said that, although my machine is back in working condition, lot of questions remain unanswered:

1. If not for the intervention of my friends, would I have got the service that I ultimately got?

2. Are customers of Lenovo products expected to have such connections? And if they don’t, they can kiss good service goodbye??

3. Does Lenovo have pathetic service representatives or what? What were they struggling for so long, for a CD, which ultimately was not required at all?

4. Is restarting a simple netbook PC, where I was okay to let the disk be formatted again if required, such a big deal??

5. What they finally understood, from a remote location of Bangalore, that the machine could be fixed in a matter of 15 minutes, why could someone NOT understand this, even with a PC in their hands here in Mumbai??

6. Does Lenovo service believe only in kicking the customer around, giving excuses, losing time, no matter if the customer does not get the use of his PC in the meantime?!

Overall, I was certainly NOT satisfied with the level of service that I got from Lenovo. I have a working machine now, but just that. I am going to pray that it does not give my any more trouble as this kind of run around is not my idea of fun at all!

And at the end, I would NOT recommend anyone to purchase a Lenovo product. Period!