Count yourself lucky

They don't know how lucky they are.

I assume like me,. a lot of people are waiting for Dell's Windows 7 upgrade package (with a shipping date that is weekly updated to the next week) for 5--6 weeks (ordered half november).

a card? are they f'ing kidding?

Look, a week or two for a custom PC is not a big deal. After that, the price shifts, and I'd expect to AUTOMATICALLY receive either cash back equal to the difference between the price I paid and the lowest price offered during that backurder timeframe, or upgrades to the best system components that equal the performance of the price point. Additionally, if the delay exceeded 4 weeks, or especially if it missed a major holiday delivery without indivation is would, I'd expect additional compensation.

Last time I custom ordered, it was a GateWay notebook, over 4 years ago. GateWay delayed delivery about 4 weeks due to problems acquiring the particular high performance HDD I had requested. By the 2nd week I had confirmation of the delay, and they discounted the order $75 as that was the new price point. On week 3 they offered a RAM upgrade in addition to the discount. Finally, they made an offer of a step up in model, keeping all the other offers intact, which included a better CPU and GPU, and i had the machine 2 days later. Had i bought that configuration 4 weeks earlier it would have been nearly $250 more.

I'd still be a Gateway customer today if they still made and sold decent high end laptops, but they folded and make crap now. Instead i got a MacBook Pro for the wife in November... which was the best machine I could get at my predetermined price point. (Dell has nothing to compare to a top end 15" MacBook Pro, nor does HP or Acer or Lenovo, best I found with the same specs was either a 9+lb 17" with a 2 hour battery that cost $400 more, or a weaker system with poor graphics for $200 more). She's got 10.6 and Win 7 on it and it plays DDO in a VM with a better framerate than my desktop with a 8800GT, and stomps my desktop performance when running win7 natively.

Wouldn't go with Dell

Dell aren't the best makers of computers. This is fact. The reliability rate for their laptops is below that of Apple, Toshiba, and Sony. I have personally purchased two laptops from Dell. The first lasted me three years. I had two issues with it. The Ethernet port died two years after I got it, and the plastic was painted, so the paint wore off on the palm rest. Second laptop I got has been a much better experience, well, except for the fact that the hard drive is beginning to fail only a year and a half after buying it. Both times no warranty to cover me. My advice to people getting a new computer is this: don't go with Dell. Stay clear of HP if you can, I have a family member who wished they had never bought a HP computer. Go with an Apple or Toshiba computer. I'd say Sony too but I'm not sure about their record lately. Personally, when I have enough money, I'm getting myself a Macbook Pro. A PC with Windows 7 is nice, but in my opinion a Mac with OSX is better.

I Love Dell! Really!

Microsoft alone couldn't do it, It Took Delll's incoherent and useless customer service, and absurdly bad build quality to get me to buy my first Mac, and for that I owe them my thanks.

I still get ads and fliers from them addressed to "Bana W_____" After two weeks of trying to get them to just fix just THAT on the phone, the best they could do was make sure everything i got was addressed with two names "Bana W____" AND "W____ Dana"

In the end, how could I trust the good faith and technical ability of a computer company that couldn't get my NAME right, let alone my computer?

Dell Hell

I know a few people who ordered machines from Dell during the September-November time period. One of them got his laptop (a $5000+ Alienware gamer special) six weeks late (not six weeks later; that would have been only four weeks late, but six weeks late, two full months after making the order) and not the way he wanted it (they were out of some special screen he wanted, he could have got the special version if he'd been willing to wait another three weeks; in addition, it had half the memory he'd ordered, 'cause they were out of the special RAM he wanted, too...). Three others canceled their orders after waiting for up to 5 weeks without getting their machines. In all four cases Dell charged their credit cards almost immediately, so they were without their money _and_ without their machines. The guys who canceled had serious problems getting Dell to return their money, and had to threaten to go to their card providers and have the money retrieved that way before Dell gave it up.

It is this new age stream lined delivery method.

It is this new age stream lined delivery method that is pure fail.

Plants refuse to have a warehouse has a stockroom full of stock but instead is made to order.

So that cuts down on holding onto anything and makes it bad for the consumer.

No stock = no quick out of the door soloution.

Why is it Dell is the only company that has these problems?

I ordered a Dell Mini 9 from them many months ago- it took over two months for them to actually ship it. Apple, Lenovo and HP are making basically the same product and they can ship machines the same day you order them, especially with a one-size-fits-all SKU like the Mini 9. What is wrong at Dell? Surely they're not that popular.

Typical Dell

Having once worked for a former logistics provider to Dell, this is no surprise.

They squeeze their supplier chain hard, and you will note a penchant for blaming problems on said suppliers. The company I worked for had continual issues with the Dell EDI system, and it was always "our fault", never their infrastructure. Thank god they found somebody cheaper than us to go beat up on when our contract ran out. We were probably losing money on the contract anyway.

They have a ruthless business model (ask Ireland how things are in Cork these days), and thanks in part to their past behavior, when it came time for me to replace my aging XPS Gen II I went back to HP. I ordered my Pavilion dv7 through Costco on 12/12 and had it by 12/22.

They have apparently decided to compete on price, not service, at least in the consumer space. Things like this should be no surprise. I would guess their corporate customers got the units they needed in time... but that's just my jaded guess.

Dell deserves a slap upside the head.

And how is this a shock?

I really don't understand how people can be-itch at Dell about their inability to build/deliver 'custom' boxes in time for the holidays if you don't order well in advance.

Look, here's the realities of the business.

First, margins are getting slimmer and slimmer. When you get your new machine, how many 'freebies' ie 'demo applications' are included to entice you to try and then purchase the actual program? (Dell gets paid to put these little gems on your PC by the software manufacturer.)

Dell doesn't build a standard box and then put it away in inventory for someone to buy. Dell builds each machine to order. What this does is keeps their parts inventory down and their built pc inventory down. This means that their 'holding costs' are lower.

Dell like other companies frequently use 'JIT' (Just In Time) for inventory management. That is that they track their inventory and they don't order new inventory before they need it. This also helps them keep their costs down. Besides holding costs, there are new and improved products out there. So they don't want to get caught holding stock that they don't need. Based on their past sales history and projected sales, they determine how much inventory to hold and when to order.

But here's the rub. When you have a year where the economy is in the crapper and you want to cut costs, you tend to hold off on ordering and you adjust your sales forecast lower. This means you order less parts. Unfortunately, there's always a lag time between when the order is placed and when the products are shipped and delivered. So if Dell needs more DDR3's, they need to order it 4 weeks in advance and they tend to order in large quantities. But what happens when their DDR3 supplier also uses JIT, and they also forecast lower sales? So then they reduce their inventory on hand and they delay the shipments. If the supplier is the manufacturer, then they have to make more. And that takes time. So they have a delay.

So, when there are delays, they can cascade and your pc isn't going to be built and delivered on time. And lets not forget that Dell wants your business, so they'll take the order.

There's more, but what I've posted is pretty much common sense. Yet people feel betrayed and shocked. You want the most bang for the buck and you want to spend less. Computer manufacturers have to make money so something has to give. Honestly, I'd be shocked if Dell didn't have any problems during the holidays. It would mean that either they're going to lose money or someone guessed right.

Its the same thing when people gripe that there aren't any real deals during x-mas. It means that the markets are operating efficiently so there's no surplus to sell off.

There are other manufacturers...

Disappointing for Dell customers, but if I'd purchased a machine from Dell and gotten the run around and been delayed more than once with no communication, I'd probably cancel the order and go with someone else. If enough people speak with their wallets, Dell might make a little better effort at customer service.

typical

Big corporate, shuts down Irish operation, moves to Poland to save money then fails to deliver the goods, all in the same year.

Nice one Dell!!!!

Should've left it...

... back in Limerick where the workers did a stonking job of making sure Dell kept SOME sort of reputation.

Serves them right for outsourcing from their new Polish factory.

Idiots. Glad I bought all my xmas purchases elsewhere.

@Why is it Dell is the only company that has these problems?

Actually HP has been having issues with getting stuff shipped out as well. We've had issues with lots of stuff backordered, or just taking weeks to get standard stock shipped. We've also had issues with wrong product being shipped multiple times... ordered 4 laser printers w/built-in JetDirects (IP printer server board) like back in Sept. They've shipped the wrong printers THREE times now - same basic model but without the JetDirects. You'd think they could just send the JetDirect boards and we could install them ourselves and t hat would save them a LOT on shipping, but noooo.... we're still waiting. So it' not just isolated to Dell folks... luckily our stuff wasn't for Christmas presents. :)

Dell drives business my way over Christmas

Thank ye, merry gentlemen.

Yes, so I had to work out quotes for one particular customer. Dell wanted to put them in an over-powered, over-priced i7 system. I priced out an i5 system at about $1300 less, including a matching warranty, and a guarantee that the off-the-shelf expansions in place would work.

Dell begrudgingly quoted an i5 system at about the same price as mine, but with no guarantees that the external storage array (Promise X-10 with InfiniBand connector,) PCI-X RocketRAID card, or Quantum DLT-V4 SCSI tape drive would work. The external array is on a standard connector, for which Promise offers an updated PCIe controller with mini-SAS and an adapter. The PCIe also takes care of the potential PCI/PCI-X issue ("No new server comes with PCI, it's all PCIe, now.") We already know OTS equipment is hit-or-miss with Dell, but to tell me that a standard 5.25" device, the tape drive, will not work in a new server because of missing mounts which can only be ordered at the time of purchase -- that is a bit obtuse. Anyway, I spent an hour arguing with this fluke. He tells me that Dell is moving the way of HP and others in terms of after-purchase equipment installation. No, that is okay; seriously, why stand out from the rest?

The week of Christmas I call back to make sure I heard everything correctly about compatibility, blah blah blah, and having consoled ourselves into losing a large investment in storage upgrades to the current server in order to stick with a Dell machine. The result: no one from Gold Sales or Support was available. No, really, the woman told me that they were all on Christmas vacation, and was rather indignant at my displeasure.

Short story long, I got in touch with a stand-in for the Gold server guy who ran up some numbers for me on additional storage and potential HBAs, but, again, no guarantees of any functionality what-so-ever. And the hard drive warranty? The basic warranty, regardless of length of coverage, only covers hard drives for one year. Fine, we really want a better warranty but, "it doesn't matter. None of the warranties cover the drives for more than a year." *sigh*

They bought my server instead, and in two weeks everything will be installed and working properly, with blessings from Intel's own server folk.

So, yes, thank you, Dell. Your customer service and insistence on pushing way more hardware than necessary has made me quite a bit of money this Christmas season, a time which is normally pretty much dead. I will see about putting you on my Christmas card list for 2010.

Paris, normally pretty much dead.

No one ever got sacked for ....

.... buying from Dell. Lot's of criticism of Dell here. But who <i>would</i> people go for for off-the-peg and bespoke Windoze desktops and servers and slight premium on the price isn't an issue?

You get what you pay for

And that includes Dell. If it seems too good to be true a deal. It probably is!

It's flack

not flak. Flak is anti-aircraft fire. A flack is a PR.

Angry customer writes...

I've been waiting 3.5 weeks for the delivery of 2 servers and they tell me I have to wait a further 3 weeks. It doesn't take 6.5 weeks for a factory to build 2 servers. I could have done it myself in 2 days if they posted me the parts! In the past they took just 1 week which suggests something at Dell has gone very wrong. Cost-cutting probably.

What makes it worse is that I ordered some switches and backup cartridges at the same time which were delivered 2 weeks ago. This means the warranty on the switches and cartridges will expire a whole month before the warranty on the servers does. Because the whole order is a self-contained system this is not acceptable.

OLD news for Dell

What cracks me up is that these are EXACTLY the kinds of stupidities that soured me on that brand for over 10 years now.

I've always been amazed at Dell's success and mindshare amongst the public. The only thing I can think of is their practice of immediately grading you as a customer into #1 "Fortune 500 corporate" (or journalist, seemingly), #2 "Medium-sized business", or #3 "Small biz/individual peon" and treating you accordingly.

I always wondered whether the movers/shakers in tier #1 were the only ones treated well, since they had the most influence on the press coverage and public perception of the company. Because as someone who always came in as a Tier 2 or Tier 3 customer under that regime, I certainly never experienced anything remotely impressive about Dell, back when I still dealt with them.

As said before Nothing New

Dell have done this for years,

I cancelled an order for an M15X after repeated delays, and different components being out of stock, some that I was told were previously already in my build....so they take some of my bits to build someone else's machine?

My thoughts are that they like to buy components at a certain bulk level to get a certain price point, which then secures their profit margin.

So high end systems generally get less orders, so they wait until they have 500 or 1000 orders for a certain component before going to their suppliers.

and Yes the quality of Dell products does vary, but to give them their dues, Business support is pretty good, its just end consumers that get the raw deal, and when you look at it that way, its pretty much the same across the board, Acer, HP and others have terrible support for your average joe, but do backflips for a corporate caller.

Time to support your small vendors guys , local people who give you personal face to face support and don't string you along with a big bunch of excuses.

phew...

...was debating whether to go for a dell studio xps or a macbook pro, after hearing on here what a mess dells customer service is and the nighmare of actually taking delivery of anything from them has made my mind up for me, will wait for the apple refresh on jan 26th 2010 and then pick up a macbook pro in store the next day !

They also delayed some orders due to cost

I had one friend that ordered a Dell Mini on black Monday this year. He ordered a standard Dell Mini with nothing special or custom changes. He ordered this on black Monday when the price was $279. His order was first delayed to December 17th. The day after he received his delay notice he received another delay notice that said his order would not be delivered until February 20th, 2010.

A few days after black Monday (AFTER) another friend ordered the exact same Dell Mini 10v and his order was delivered before Christmas. He paid the normal price of $349. This was the exact same computer and it was ordered after black Monday. Sounds like Dell pushed all the special or reduced priced items back.