Three good customer service experiences I’ve had of late:
- lenovo: I bought an X41 tablet not long after Lenovo bought the Thinkpad brand. I was a little worried about the impact the purchase would have on customer service, but in my first interaction with them (yesterday, 2 1/2 years after the purchase) their service was prompt, professional, and most importantly, trusted me- I said the drive was busted, they asked a very minimal number of questions, established I knew what I was doing, and I had the drive today. Best computer -related service I’ve had in a long time.
- roomba: a thread holding in a brush got stripped a week after the warranty expired. I asked very nicely for a replacement and got it- no questions asked, despite expired warranty. Very pleasant surprise. Still highly recommend the Roomba 5xx series.
- eagle creek: I have had the same eagle creek backpack for nine years- many friends will have seen it all over Europe, India, Australia, and Niger, often stuffed to the gills. A zipper broke over the summer- nine years after I bought it. When I asked if they could service the zipper, not only did they fix the zipper for free, they also (without being asked!) patched a place where the fabric had worn through and replaced a broken strap fastener. Awesome, awesome service, and an awesome, awesome bag- I expect to buy another one (different model) soon.
I had an experience similar to yours with your Roomba. My Playstation 3’s Blu-Ray disk player broke a week after the warranty expired. So I called Sony, said that the warranty had been expired for a week. The nice guy I talked to on the phone had to talk to his supervisor for a moment and told me that it was ok. I got a brand new (or at least revised) Playstation 3 two weeks after I send in mine. Pretty good if you ask me.
I’ve dealt with Thinkpad support four times, twice before the sale and twice after. I haven’t noticed any drop at all in their total awesomeness. The most amazing time was when I called at 10am for a semi-major problem. DHL had a shipping box to me by 1pm, and I had a fixed laptop with a replaced motherboard back to me by noon the next day. 26 hour turnaround including two-way shipping! Incredible. I suppose part of the incredibleness was DHL, too.
My one previous thinkpad support experience was a mixed bag- the thinkpad folks were terrific, but DHL somehow shipped me a Dell part instead of an IBM part, which delayed the fix by several days. :/
I found that Lenovo gave me to an outsourced call center for a simple hardware power problem and handed me to a guy who mumbles under his breath in barely comprehensible ways in funny imaginary accents, straight out of Seinfeld :)
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