Kudos to IBM
28 October, 2010 -
I happen to have a laptop. Quite an old one. Got it for one of our projects, back in 2005, and it’s been through quite a lot since then. About a year ago, it met the wrath of my children, and its space-bar broke in a way I couldn’t fix. Oh well, I figured, since it’s significantly out of warranty, and it’s IBM, there’s no use in using their lab. They’ll ask for half the price of a new one just to look at it. We all know IBM. Right?
Wrong. One day in August, I did the retroactively obvious thing and phoned to ask them. Turned out they do the fix for free, and would only charge me for a spare keyboard if they didn’t have a replacement key available. As it happened, they did have all the parts they needed, and so they fixed it at no charge and on the spot. I spent ~15 minutes at the IBM lab, and now my laptop and me are back in business. And I even got a gift keyboard cleaner.
Yes, it was a very minor fix (for them), of course. But I was very pleasantly surprised. I am now much more likely to buy my next laptop from them (or whoever they provide service for).