Tech Support

So I called Lenovo tech support last night because the volume rocker on the left side of the device stopped working. It would only send the volume down, not up. This was only a mild annoyance because there are three ways to control the volume on the Yoga 11s and that was only one of them. On the keyboard you have function keys that can be used to control the volume and in tablet mode you have the setting area when you bring up the charms bar on the left. Having an additional volume control seemed a little overkill to me, but I didn’t design it.

The first thing that happened upon this discovery was that I wasn’t overly upset by it. I had two other, perfectly functional methods for changing the volume – I didn’t need a third. If it had been an Apple device, I would have marched my ass down to the Apple Store and raised a stink. Which I did with my 15” MacBook Pro with Retina on multiple occasions – in fact, they replaced it five times over the course of a year.

Maybe now you understand a little more why I decided to start this experiment…

Anyway, the person I spoke with on the phone was incredibly kind and helpful. I can’t say the same kind of experience occurs when calling Apple Support. That’s not to say I haven’t had good experiences working with Apple support in the past, I have, but I’ve also had some pretty awful experiences.

Now, Apple support generally has a little more knowledge of their products when you speak to them than the impression I received from the Lenovo rep, but she was at least honest about having to check with somebody in order to better assist me. Apple phone reps tend to try and make you feel like crap if you know more than they do by spouting off BS. The woman I deal with at Lenovo was very pleased that I was able to quickly answer her questions and that I knew what I was doing even if she was stumbling a bit. It honestly felt like she was new as opposed to not having received enough training. It was a pleasant experience.

Now, here’s where I’m saddened by Lenovo – they have no local presence for me to get in touch with for help. There were a couple of authorized service providers I could have checked in with, but they weren’t open at 11:30 last night. This isn’t so much for the support side of things as it is for the repair side of things. Right now, this is my primary device and I don’t have much of a backup device (Backup DRIVE, but no device). They wanted me to mail it in for 7 to 10 days for repair. I attempted to get them to send me the part, but they wouldn’t.

In the end, I decided that the button wasn’t enough for me to go without my device for such a long period of time so I opted out of the repair for the moment.

In the end, I’m glad I did because apparently there was just some piece of grit in the rocker button that loosened up and fell out. It’s working again as of about fifteen minutes ago.

Points to go Apple for having such a strong retail presence and providing such excellent support at their Genius Bars – and the amount of training they go through, it really isn’t some idiot they hired yesterday to hop up there and start spouting off technobabble to get you to go away.

Lenovo gets points for having excellent customer service skills on the phone, even if the agent didn’t know everything. I wish there was the same kind of experienced, well trained, tech supported available to non-apple users, but Geek Squad just isn’t that entity.

Over all, I’d rather deal with Lenovo than Apple on the phone. Hopefully I won’t need to make that call again any time soon.

As a note, Lenovo customer service is located right here in the United States for US support issues. Apple does the same thing, but it’s to know that either company has its phone support lines in the United States.

The difference is that Apple Care has hours while Lenovo is open 24-7.

I believe the game goes to Lenovo this time around.