Customer Care ONLY for happy people ????!!!! Studio XPS16 > Do NOT buy !

Well, I live in Switzerland and have the same problem. I ordered a Xps 16 with core I7, 4670 Ati, 500 gig Hd etc. BEFORE i ordered, the delivery was 10-12 days, AFTER i payed the estimated delivery time was suddenly First of decembre thats 5.5 weeks later!!! I did not even get an explanation. It was like, "thank you for your money, now its no longer necessary to lie that the delivery will be in 10 days." I feel really frustrated. Especially, because i need that notebook very soon!
I called customer service and a not that friendly woman told me basically, that she has no clue why my notebook takes so long to build and that she isnt willing to find it out. Of course she didn't say sorry for the big delay! I wanted to talk to somebody who is more likely to give me the answers i wanted but she refused. I am not even sure, if she really understood my questions...

Okay, calling seems not an option, so i wrote an email a couple of days ago. It was a friendly email. Well, i am still waiting for a answer although it was promised on the contact form, that it usually takes one day to get an answer. It seems, that dell promises a lot but isnt that eager to fullfill what they promised as long as the money is already paid.

Dell, this is not an acceptable customer care!! Dont be suprised, when people decide to buy somewhere else!!

By the way, there is a way to make customers accept unexpected delays: say sorry, give good explanations and offer a upgrade! This is surely less expensive, than losing customers.

Kind regards

This is a Repost because apparently, Dell deletes posts that use words involving legal matters, even though I never violated their precious TOS. Talk about censorship!

I cannot believe Dell is allowed to operate this way. Like everyone else, I placed my order on September 28th with an estimated ship date of October 25. Then I received an email stating it would arrive by November 4th. So I called Dell EPP customer care, who told me that Dell ran out of the ATI graphics card and casing for the laptop, which made absolutely no sense. However, I was guaranteed that it would arrive by November 4th. On November 3rd, my order status page shows up with a ship date of November 10th, so I call Dell Customer Care again and am told that the notebook was built and during the testing phase the wireless card produced errors and found defective. SO Dell had to CANCEL my order and replace it with a new order that would not arrive until November 30th. Does that make ANY SENSE to anyone here? After reading this forum, it sounds like Dell has been giving everyone different stories and lying about what the actual delay is... I wonder if they are just trying to boost their 4th Quarter sales numbers by purposely delaying all of our orders.. Nonetheless, this sounds like a serious Bait and Switch scam aka Fraud because no one seems to be getting a straight answer and the date keeps switching. I may have to cancel my order and give a call to my State XXXXXXXX office because I am sure there are guidelines prohibiting this type of behavior. Like all of you, I could have gone and bought an HP back in September/October without suffering this ridiculous wait and the constant misinformation and lies Dell customer care likes to spit out.

I feel with you! After i have read your post i decided to check my order status. Guess what, my Order has been cancelled and replaced by a new one!! Again, no explication, no excuse. The estimated delivery date was postponed another 12 days, so i can wait up to 7 (!!) weeks in total now. I called Customer Care: It was not a defective wireless modul which made it necessary to cancel this time, no, it was a problem with the bluetooth modul. This starts to be ridiculous. Dell, don't treat customers like that!

Same exact story. Ordered my Dell Studio 17 on 10/12. It was supposed to be delivered on 11/9 but I received an email today saying that my order is delayed until 11/19. Everyone has the same story and Dell is at fault. This is very frustrating and won't do Dell any good. I suggest we all take it against Dell with "twitter attacks" or any other way possible to spread this around so no one else buys from them until they learn how to treat their customers. I personally am planning to cancel my order and go with HP now!!! Sorry Dell, you won't be getting any money from me now.

I visited the Dell order status web site a number of times during the five weeks Dell originally estimated it would take to build and ship my new Studio XPS 16.

The status of the laptop build nor the estimated delivery date of 10/29 never changed from the day the laptop was ordered (9/30) until 10/29, the date the laptop was due at my house. I contacted Dell a number of times to inquire about Windows 7, as well as to get an updated delivery status a number of times, in the week preceding 10/29, and none of the agents I spoke to informed me of a possible delay.

Only when I called on 10/29, the day the laptop was due, did an agent tell me that there would be a delay of delivery of 11/5. I did not receive an email nor any other proactive status update from Dell, even though your prerecorded announcement played while customers are on-hold describes how Dell contacts by email in the event of a delay. I was told that the XPS 16 was a very popular model. Well good for Dell, but isn’t demand factored into the estimated delivery date?

Is this the mighty Dell or the local grocery store who didn’t count on a run of turkeys the night before Thanksgiving?

So my new delivery date was  11/5. On that day, I decided to give Dell a call to verify the delivery, mostly to be sure someone would be home to accept delivery. Again, incredibly, I was told there would be a delay in the delivery of my laptop, this time until 11/12. Am I disappointed about the delay? Absolutely. I didn’t order the machine to watch movies, rather to work. I don’t understand how an estimate could be missed by 51% (original time of 29 days /14 days of delay). Worse, though, is that it took me to call Dell to learn of the delay.

Nice job Dell.

Thank you for your report sannaps. Its really a shame, how Dell is treating customers. It seems Dell is trying hard to lose their customers. They are on a good way to succeed in that, i guess.

An update on my order

This weekend i checked my order status, not expecting much. I was very suprised, that my order was "in production" now." Finally", i thought, "maybe, i really get my laptop soon, after "only" 2.5 times the time i was promised before i ordered (10-12 days)."

Well, today i checked my order status again. And suprise, surprise, i was on "order received" again. If I am lucky i get my laptop before christmas.... Of course there was no notification of my downgrade. Of course there still isnt any answer of my email, i was supposed to get wtithin 24 hours. 

What really drives me cracy is this no-communication thing of Dell. No explanations, no excuses, no nothing. They are not even offering upgrades for their mess. 

I'm having the same issues as Chababa =(  I placed an order in Sept. it got delayed, then delayed again, then I was told I had to cancel and order a different machine.... I'm still waiting for my system... I'll be lucky if I ever get it...  What has happened to Dell?

Here was the post I made... but I'm happy and saddened that I'm not alone.. 

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19303584/19586367.aspx

ME TOO!

Ordered an Studio XPS 16 on 16 October 2009.  Estimated delivery date was 9 November 2009 (yesterday).  On 9 November, they updated the delivery status to 16 November 2009.  I called "Customer Service" (I use that term loosely), and was told that my order was in "the final stages of production and I should have it by 16 November, no guarantees, but it looks good for that date".  That was yesterday...  Today, they canceled my original order and re-ordered the exact same item, but the estimated delivery date is 4 December 2009 (49 days from my original date).

I asked "Customer Service" three questions -

1. What is causing the delay?

2. How likely is it that I will receive my order on the estimated delivery date?

3. What will Dell do to make me forget about this inconvenience?

Their answers?

1.  The order was not entered into their system correctly, so it had to be canceled and re-entered (strange how one "CSR" told me it was nearing completion the night before the "incorrectly entered order" was discovered and "corrected").

2. No guarantees on the delivery date.  (I told him not to use the word "estimated" at least 10 times, yet he kept giving me the same stupid answer with that same stupid accent).

3. They have no policy for compensating customers for Dell's incompetence.

Considering an HP Envy 15 (more money, but less aggravation).  I've been dealing with Dell for over 12 years.  I've owned Dells, recommended countless Dells, and sold hundreds (if not thousands) of Dells, from cheap desktops to servers.  I'm at the point where I'm ready to cancel, which kills me because I've had my eye on this computer for a long time and Dell has always been a no-brainer for me.

GConstanza.....I got the exact same responses.  Error in my order....yea...just found it after 3 weeks.  I checked my line items, and it was identical to the original order.  They couldn't use that excuse the second time they cancelled the order.  I feel your frustration.  It's a game to me at this point.  Kind of comical.  I feel like I've beat the competition because I ordered mine early than just about anyone  9/25/09 EDD of 10/26....reorder 10/22 EDD of 11/18.....reorder 11/9 EDD of 12/8....   Somebody beat that......

It is kind of like a game.  I've resolved myself to call them every day to check on the status of my order.  Today, I was told that the problem was that they'd specified an incorrect wireless card in the original spec.  I compared the canceled order to the new order and confirmed that they had different 7 digit SKU numbers, but other than that, there was no difference to the "naked eye".  After speaking with the financial person (I had to "authorize" the new order that was placed on my Dell account), he assured me that the order was released to production.  We'll see after tomorrow's phone call.  At this point, I've got plenty of time to call and get updates...

I have had the exact same conversation recently.  I would rather have Dell tell me that a certain part is not yet available and give me at least an honest estimate.  Even if that's two months away.  Your right...people who buy these high end computers are usually serious users.  I hate being flat out lied to...be it the incorrect SKU thing, the dishonest ship dates, the fact orders are deleted and re-entered (what's to hide there other than ontime delivery statistics)...just adjust my ship date...leave my order date alone,  dealing with customer service reps who don't speak plain english...don't actual care to help you (and probably can't...not their fault),  it has really turned me off of Dell.  I looked back at some posts from early January this year when they launched some other Dell lines.  You will read the identical posts to what goes on now.  They are very poor at handling product launches....  Does anyone at Dell actually read these posts and respond?  I have had one deleted for content (haha) so I know they do check them.....  Change your business model for launches.....you lose customers they way you currently do it.

They do read them because I had a post deleted from this thread last night.  I think because I maligned a certain big box eletronics chain or used a word that sounds like a dice game you'd play in Vegas...  Whatever...

The gist of my post was the irony that we're all complaining about the service surrounding buying an XPS 16, one of their higher-end products, not the low-end of their offering.  I'm sure there is more profit in the higher end machines, yet we're not being treated that way.  It's like the guy buying the Focus being treated better than the guy buying the Excursion - it just doesn't make good business sense, especially when the economy is so bad.  They should be happy that people are buying their products, even more so when they're buying the pricier products.

Actually I posted a reply to this thread and I purchased Alienware^TM  Area 51 ALX.  The only reason why I purchased it was because I went to purchase their highest model XPS and that kept getting delayed then it got cancelled.  Dell doesn't care what your buying they give everyone the same excuses from what I can see.   Hopefully I get my PC but reading this thread and many others I don't get the warm and tingly feeling I should from Dell.

Its such a shame since their service used to be amazing when it was based out of Canada and the United States =/

This was my post:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19303557/19585822.aspx#19585822

Does anybody know if there was a single laptop delivered in -lets say the last 2 months- with Core I7? Or has Dell been selling Laptotps with Core I7 for months without actually having the parts to assemble them? In my country, there even was a 400 Dollar discount on this very laptop, which seems not the be ready to be assembled and delivered. I can think of only 2 reasons why this could happen.

First: Incompetence: Marketing department and production/parts ordering department dont talk together. Every department works witih no knowledge of the other departments and consequently doesnt know about problems with stock and delivery problems and (not yet existing) systems are advertised/sold.

Second: Ignorance: Dell does lie to customers that XPS systems are delivered in 10-12 days. As soon, they got your money, they put you on the long line. They dont offer you apology nor free upgrades. They dont care about you.

I am not sure which option is better.