I’m not very happy with Dell today. Around the first of December I ordered two computers, one for my daughter and one for myself. My daughter’s computer was a pink Inspiron and it had a ship date of 12/26. Low and behold, Dell lived up to the tradition I knew it for and the computer arrived a week or so early. Now my computer, an XPS 1530, was ordered at the same time and was not shipped early. In fact, on the 26th, its original ship date, I got email saying it had been delayed and the new ship date was 01/04/2008. No explanation was given for the delay. I’ve emailed and tried to call to see if there was some component that was holding things up, hoping a slight change in specifications would get an earlier ship date. No joy. No one can tell me what the problem is.
Checking on-line does no good. The only status I get is “In Production”. A few years ago you used to be able to track your computer build on-line. I remember watching an order mover from order verification, to kitting, to assembly, on through to burn-in and shipping. I can’t recall all of the steps involved but there were many steps involved and you could check on-line to see exactly where your computer was. Now, they can’t even tell me what the delay is.
My first thought was that there was a Christmas rush. But I checked the Dell blogs and saw a comment from a guy who ordered his XPS 1530 several days AFTER I ordered mine and he received his in 3 days. No explanation.
I’m not coming down on Dell too hard but it would be nice to have a little more explanation and even a little more notice. Did they just realize on the 26th that there was going to be a delay? I doubt it. And the irony of all of this is that I ordered an XPS simply because the XPS systems have better customer service. I really do not enjoy talking to people at a call center who have little knowledge of what they are doing and use assumed American names. Come on people, we all know you are most likely in India so please use your real name. Your accent tips Americans off that you are not “Allen”, “Jethro”, or “Melissa” so educate the Americans and help those with trouble learn to pronounce your real name.
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