How Lenovo regained my trust as a customer…
As you may recall, I had my share of problems with my last laptop, which culminated in a bad customer service experience. I was sufficiently incensed to blog (see vent) about it here.
What happened next made me stay with Lenovo instead of switching to a Mac. First off, Mark from Lenovo posted a comment on my blog, asking me to contact him. He apologized for the bad experiences I had and scheduled for a technician to come to my house to fix my problem. When I had additional problems with my computer he jumped through hoops to get it fixed. At the end he send me a brand new computer - extending the next business day on-site warranty beyond what I had purchased.
So what happened that made me regain the trust in the company:
- Timely response to my problem with a genuine “I feel your pain” attitude
- No corporate speak - honest and transparent conversation to resolve my issues
- Wow me through customer service by doing unexpected things - in this case send me a newer and better computer without me asking for it.
At the end of the day, most customers know that products cannot be flawless. If they do end up with a lemon, their tolerance to work through the issue with the vendor is usually large - after all they bought the product because they have a certain affinity for the product and/or the company and so their default attitude towards that company is usually positive.
Unfortunately you can squander all that positive social capital in minutes by having a customer service rep with a bad hair day becoming combative with a customer calling to resolve an issue. That too will happen - especially in large companies.
The key is to minimize this negative people-effect by hiring the right people and by building a no-excuse customer-centric culture - much like what Zappos.com has been able to achieve. The other key is to have a swat team of people on staff who can jump in when the inevitable will happen - a complete system breakdown. Because even when that happens, you can and should try to recover that customer.
Lenovo just did it with me…thank you Mark.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Francois,
Thanks for the kind words, and for giving us another chance.
Mark
June 12th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Had the same experience over a year ago, first time I ever had to get a ThinkPad serviced actually. The service and the machines are what make me stick to the brand.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Brilliant example of how a company should monitor blogs and use them to their advantage. It is strange how many companies are afraid to acknowledge these complaints on blogs. Perhaps they are not ready to take the punch? In most cases, being able to say sorry already tells the customer that you are listening and the frustration may well have been decreased. As you said, people buy a product due to an existing affinity. I also suspect that the solving of the problem is less important compared to timely response. We dont like to be ignored and being acknowledged means we will be more tolerant and forgiving. Kudos to Lenovo. Mac customer service better be listening.
June 15th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Great post and comments.
Regained trust is truly valuable.
Genuine, timely response and honest, transparent conversation will help you regain this trust, but it should also keep a lot of it from happening in the first place.
ken
June 16th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
One primary difference between your situation and that of many others that might have played a role in your experience is that your blog serves you as a pretty big megaphone. Joe Schmoe would quite likely now own a Mac.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Hi Richard - thank you for the comment. While I tend to agree with what you’re saying, there are other platforms through which users can now voice their opinion rather loudly - there are social networking sites, user-driven bulletin boards and more. So if a non-blogging user is truly ticked off, I am sure that they could make themselves heard.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Richard,
I think if anyone doing brand monitoring is honest, there has to be a strategy, and prioritization of efforts based on reach is a factor in the discussion from a pragmatic standpoint. However, personally, I find my actions tend to be shaped most by two factors. (1) Did I find it, and more importantly, (2) the merit of the situation.
So, to your point, if Joe Schmoe is on the top of page 1 in Google, or whatever else I might be using to find him, I’ll read him and am as likely to reach out to him as in Francois’ case. More important to me is the merit of the post - I read other posts from the blog, or the forum member’s other posts and make a determination. As a policy of fairness, has the person tried the front door first, or are they just trying to use their blog to bump the priority and seek preferential treatment by taking the situation public? There is also a difference in Francois mentioning his issues in passing, rather than setting up a YourCompanySucksRocks.blogspot site and just railing away day after day until the olive branch is extended.
I think transparency, and authenticity on the part of the blogger is just as important as that exhibited by the company. It is a matter of trust and intent.
I agree with Ken’s comment too. Each engagement with a customer online is an opportunity not only to address that customer’s needs, but to understand why the situation occured and make systematic changes.
Mark
July 15th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I am having the exact opposite customer care experience from Lenovo right now. I have talked to a large number of tech support people and sent the computer off for repairs twice. All they did was re-image the hard drive and with the wrong (and cheaper) version of the OS.
I finally got through to a sales rep who is “applying” for “special permission” to return my laptop and send me a new one.
I had a customer service rep transfer me in the middle of talking (just as bad as hanging up). One tried to blame the software. My favorite was the one who said “he didnt know” in response to my question on why I spent thousands on a Lenovo when the $400 off the shelf PC I bought my mother runs better than my Lenovo.
September 29th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Just had the worst experience with Lenovo which made me google the word rude and lenovo online. I called IBM customer service to deal with them
They are rude and service is atrocious.
Whoever wrote the above probaly works there. I dont see how those rude people could ben over backwards fora customer..I am going to any other company but Lenovo..too bad since I have had thinpad for about a decade now!!
October 6th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I am having a terrible experience with customer service. I had a hard drive die with their “repair” software. I originally purchased an in house tech support plan which seems to be a bogus sheet of paper!