Customer Service with Lenovo

Just over a year ago, I purchased a lenovo T61 ThinkPad and so far, it has been very reliable and dependable. I find it to be very sturdy actually so i've had no complaints. A couple months ago however, I noticed that the battery started behaving oddly. Even though the battery was fully charged with over 2 hours left (so the computer says) if I unplug the adaptor, the battery drains completely within 20 minutes. Absolutely disappointing and unacceptable! Hmma's housemate also owns one of these laptops - he actually purchased his after I bought mine and he had a similar issue. He told me that he was able to contant Lenovo and they sent him a new battery. No hassles, a replacement arrived the next day. Nice.

So a couple months ago when I discovered this odd behaviour, I looked up my warranty info for the laptop and it said 3 years. Excellent, still two years to go. So I left the situation alone... until yesterday, while watching Heart of Greed, the laptop died right in the middle of my episode. I finally decided it was time to replace it. So I called up the Lenovo service department and they told me that the battery is only under warranty for 1 year. NOOO!! My warranty JUST expired one month ago. Surely this could not be. The support person told me that Lenovo had a battery recall recently and i should see if my battery was included. I went home and sadly, it was not. So i called back again today to express my dissatisfaction. First, the fact that the battery should conveniently fail me one month after the warranty expired is an indication of terrible quality. If I wanted that level of quality, I would have opted for a cheaper Dell (no offence to Dell ... did that once but never again). Second, the battery started to behave poorly before the warranty had expired. But because I was informed by their website that my warranty was three years, I thought I had time to wait. Never ever wait. These things don't solve themselves magically. Third, I had spent probably close to an hour being transferred from support person to support manager to special claims department. Really, I was getting frustrated but trying very hard to remain calm on the phone. I don't like it when people call up support only to yell at the other person on the line threatening them or demanding them to do what they ask. I just don't think that is helpful. So I was firm but fair - in this instance, i think it was fair to request that my battery be replaced. Finally, when I reached the special claims department, the manager there said he would put in a request for a replacement battery. He was very nice and said there shouldn't be a problem in getting that approved since I was only one month out of the warranty period. He apologized for inconveniences and hoped the new battery would solve my laptop problems. he also gave me his direct line and said he would call back to let me know when the battery would be shipped.

All in all, i would say that was a pretty good customer service experience. New battery!!! YEAH!