Thinkpad Again--Jeesh Those Guys Are Good

I posted my success in getting my apparently dead Thinkpad resuscitated yesterday. There remained a single beguiling problem. I could get my email just fine on my home wifi, but not my Internet connection. Sitting two feet away from me, my wife could get her connections just fine.  My workarounds also worked. I could get to the web via an Ethernet wire or my EVDO card.

I had a roomful of geeks for dinner last night and they agreed this was a really perplexing problem.  In fact, they seemed to enjoy the complexity.   just wanted to get it fixed and my investment in a friendly dinner did not net these results.

While I was wining and dining them in futility, Dave Churbuck, Lenovo's VP for Internet Marketing was reading my previous post and left a comment that offered some more tech support. Realizing I could have saved myself the price of a few bottles of wine and barbecued chicken, I took Dave up on his offer.

Two hours later I received a call from my Matt, the same genius who had solved some really ugly problems last month.  He did it by phone and he labored with me for over two hours. Back then, I thanked him profusely and closed the conversation telling him how much I appreciated what he had done and joked that I hoped I would not have to speak with him professionally ever again.

Here he was again  This time it took old Matt less than half an hour to solve the riddle of a checkbox in my browser settings that need to be unchecked and a mysterious IP address that was in  a dialog box where it did not belong.

Problem solved.  I thanked Matt profusely and told him I hope to never have to speak with him professionally ever again. I should have added that he and Dave are free to drop by for a barbecued chicken and wine dinner whenever they're in my neighborhood.

Why do a belabor this stuff so much.  I am not in any way connected with IBM, Lenovo or the Thinkpad folk. It's because my last computer was a Dell and I could not even get their support people to talk to me and the contrast is both stark and significant.

Service and support matter.  It's where loyalty is built or lost. Four times in two months, I've been on Lenovo support hotlines, feeling tense and worried about having to buy a new computer. our times they save my butt with relatively little trouble. Had they not been there for me, I might have concluded that the Thinkpad isn't much better than the Dell had been.

Instead, despite my four problems, I am convinced that these were unfortunate anomalies. I believe in the product.  More important, I believe in the team of people behind the product. My warranty has expired, but the people are still there to help.

Blogging about this stuff matters a great deal to me, because we the users can now favorably or unfavorably impact brands.

I want to help the companies who treat me right and to shame the companies that don't to change their ways. I think its too late for Dell. If what I write gets more people to buy Thinkpads, then I'm happy--not because it helps Lenovo, but because it helps the people who buy them.

Comments

[Stephen]

Clearly you have met two great people who get the idea of Raving Fans. It reminds me of a post over on http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/

It is sad to see that usually bad experiences propogate 10 fold versus the good ones. It is like blogs that choose to get their attention by being controvercial. Every one seems to enjoy a slag-fest.

I am with you on enjoying and celebrating the good times and experiences. Sometimes these small experiences can spin our attitude and make us feel better about ourselves.

In your case, if the service hadn't been so good, you may have started doubting yourself on what is often an expensive tool. Now you are a raving fan and would justify any extra cost that you or someone you would talk to might have to spend over another choice.

That is how you move from cost to value.

[David Churbuck]

I can take no credit. Mitch Ratcliffe alerted me to your woes, but Mack Kabigting worked your problem, and the whole team led by Jeff Hermann and Mark Hopkins in the Research Triangle made sure it got resolved. Glad you're okay. If there is one thing that gets us passionate at Lenovo, it's supporting the heck out of our PCs.

[Stephen]

Well good for you guys. Often Strategy, Tactics and Operations get in the way of the customer. Sadly in the PC business if every customer interaction cost what this one did a PC would be VERY expensive.

Let's look at this experience. Three issues. Not sure the time on the first two, but this one took ~ 2 1/2 hours of direct support cost, plus a little overhead. Let's call it 3 hours. At $15-$20US per hour, that was $60.

If you had a BI platform that did customer profitability analysis this would say that Shel is a bad egg. But reality is very different, maybe even the opposite. All hail the people in the process, people and technology cycle.

[Geoff]

It would be helpful to the rest of us and future searches if you could document the problem and its full solution in a post, it will be pretty annoying if someone does a search and finds "mysterious IP address that was in a dialog box" which box where?

[thai]

hi

I think you are lucky guy

I have thinkpad X60s ,and stay in hold for four time in four days ,each time more than two hours ,no body in the other end ,I gave it up after the fourth time ,and my problem still there