IBM Technical Support

Phone Number & Getting a Rep

IBM Technical Support number

800-426-7378
Toll-free·Calls Technical Support·See main phone number & contact info
Q:

How do I talk to a human at this IBM number?

A:Press 1, then 1, then 1
Q:

Does this phone number work 24/7?

A:Yes! This phone number operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The least busy day is Thursday, and the most busy day is Tuesday. See below for more and to learn where this data comes from.
Q:

How long will I have to wait to speak to IBM Technical Support?

A:The average hold time is 3 minutes. The longest hold times are on Thursday, and the shortest are on Wednesday.

All IBM customer service contact information

This is the #2 most popular IBM phone number out of 3. Click above to go back to the main customer service number and other contact information, including IBM email addresses, twitter handles, and live chat options.

More IBM Customer Phone Numbers

Customer Service

800-426-4968
Main phone number · Toll-free · 24 hours, 7 days · Calling this IBM number should go right to a real human being · Press 1 to speak with an operator.

Purchasing

877-426-6006
Toll-free · 24 hours, 7 days · Calling this IBM number should go right to a real human being · If you know the location and extension of your party, press or say 1. For questions about your orders, inventory, invoice, or contract, press or say 2. For technical support, press or say 3. For questions about e-tools, press or say 4. For general inquiries not listed here, press 5.

How do I get through the phone menu to a real live person?

GetHuman researchers routinely call this IBM phone number to document the phone system.
Here is our latest tip for weaving through the phone menu to get to a real person the fastest: Press 1, then 1, then 1
Here is how our research team describes the way the IBM phone system greets you: For System X products, press 1. For all other products, press 2.

What are the hours and when should I call?

IBM operates the call center for this 800-426-7378 phone number 24 hours, 7 days. The short answer is that you should call on a Thursday. This observation and the following section are based on analysis of a sample set of 1,086 calls made in the last 90 days using our free, web-based phone (see above).
An important note: busy times vs hold times vs best time to call
When we refer to busy or less busy times, we are talking about the volume of calls. The busiest times are when the most people are calling this IBM phone number (least busy times have fewer people calling). This high call volume does not necessarily mean that you will have a long hold time when you call. Companies like IBM staff their call centers differently based on the time of day and day of the week, so you may experience a shorter wait on hold at the busiest of times. When we refer to the best time to call, we are referring to the optimal combination of lower call volume and shorter wait times.

The least busy time to call

The least busy day to call IBM is Thursday. The most busy day to call is Tuesday. Again, this is based on a sample of 1,086 calls made with our AI-powered, web-based phone in the last 90 days.

The shortest wait on hold

We measured the shortest hold times to be on Wednesday. The longest wait in the queue on average occurs on Thursday.

The best time to call

In summation, the best day to call IBM is Thursday. This is not the day with the shortest wait on hold in the phone system, but we still recommend it for its ideal combination of low call volume and short hold times. Plus we believe that IBM staffs the call center well on Thursday.

Calling this IBM Customer Number

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad, and my warranty card says to call this IBM number to get help with it. That was interesting to me as I thought IBM sold Lenovo products, and apparently they do, but they still have product support for some of the older models. Apparently, mine falls into that category. After my dive down the rabbit hole, I went ahead and made the call. 

While I wasn't sure what to expect, I can honestly say the greeting caught me off-guard. Instead of greeting me or saying thank you for calling IBM, it immediately said, "Your call will be recorded for quality purposes and may be retained for up to 60 days. The recording won't be shared outside of IBM." This made me pause, but it was at least quite upfront. After this, it gave me two options, "If you're calling about a Lenovo problem, including System X, press 1. For all other products and solutions supported by IMB, press 2." 

I needed help with the old Lenovo laptop, so I went ahead and chose that. Then I had a few more options to choose from which included, "For Think-branded products, press 1. For Idea-branded products, press 2. For all server, storage, and network branded software, press 3." This was another easy one for me because I had a Think-branded laptop so I just pressed the button and waited again. 

Moving through the steps was actually easy because the questions were logical and had to do with what I needed. All of it was very simple actually when you consider how many business clients IBM must have and support. I would have expected a much more complicated customer service center, but it wasn't hard to use at all. The next set of questions was, "If you have an existing case and have your case number available, please press 1. Otherwise, please press 2." I pressed two and was sent to a hold line with gentle music playing.

It took me about 4 minutes but Celia answered the phone and asked me how she could help. She ended up transferring me to a technical support specialist, but was pleasant enough and I didn't have to wait long to talk to the specialist either and my questions did get addressed. While the call may have started off weird, it ended fine and there wasn't a long wait so I can't complain about much.

Christian has been writing about long hold times and customer service call center experiences since 2010. He's been featured in Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.

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