Aurora R11, Buying Experience

Question

Hello fellow Alienware lovers,

I just wanted to share my personal experience with my most recent purchase from Dell. I currently have an Aurora R7 that I love, and on 5/18 I noticed the beautiful Aurora R11 rigs, complete with 10th Gen Intel chips. Yay! Unfortunately I couldn't control myself and decided it was time to upgrade (along with getting a gorgeous Alienware Ultrawide monitor)! I pulled the trigger and was a little surprised to see a tentative delivery date of 6/24, but given the fact the world is really going through it, I understood the scenario and long timetable for delivery.

I started seeing multiple posts on Reddit and in Alienware forums about delays, so I kept on top of my order and contacted support multiple times throughout the process. One agent assured me my order would be on time, a few days later another told me it was in production and heading to QC soon. Closer towards my "delivery date", a third mentioned it was not delayed and would be shipped on 6/23 with overnight delivery. Time and time again I was told all was well and no delay would happen - well, you guessed it. It's been delayed now until 8/3/2020... almost three months? Not only have I seen others who have ordered AFTER me get their rigs, 8/3 is pretty much the same delivery date as if I was to place a brand new order a couple days ago!

Now I fully understand parts shortages and delays for products - no issues from me on that front; however, as a consumer, I would appreciate being given a realistic timetable not only when I place my order, but when I call for updates. I don't appreciate being given multiple reassurances over and over, only to find out at the 11th hour that the expectations set multiple times by multiple people were not true in the slightest. I would have rather been told "we are doing our best, but honestly we don't know if your computer is in production/will make it to your home" - at least then I could have had a realistic expectation. Its kind of a hard pill to swallow that the consumer is apparently the one who has to take responsibility for keeping on top of an order, and even then it was to no avail.

At this point I am hard pressed not just to say forget it and cancel (as I got the i7 10700KF chip and KFs were the only chip types available when I placed my order) while just making a new order for the K variant with integrated graphics. As someone who has purchased from Dell multiple times, and normally am very happy with their products and services, this last round has not left me feeling very positive about their customer service.

Thanks for your time and I hope you all get your shiny new computers soon!

Fox

GTS81 · Accepted Answer

@Darkfoxx :

At this point I am hard pressed not just to say forget it and cancel (as I got the i7 10700KF chip and KFs were the only chip types available when I placed my order) while just making a new order for the K variant with integrated graphics. As someone who has purchased from Dell multiple times, and normally am very happy with their products and services, this last round has not left me feeling very positive about their customer service.

Dell currently has a 10% off coupon code for the Aurora right now so you can if you want see if it would save you money to cancel and reorder with the 10 percent off.

You should consider hopping on the gravy train. Multiple customers on this forum have just dumped their order, got a higher end config with more discount, and delivery delay is a week or so from their earlier order.

Now I fully understand parts shortages and delays for products - no issues from me on that front; however, as a consumer, I would appreciate being given a realistic timetable not only when I place my order, but when I call for updates. I don't appreciate being given multiple reassurances over and over, only to find out at the 11th hour that the expectations set multiple times by multiple people were not true in the slightest.

Kudos to your level headed response to this. It's unreasonable for a person to outright give unrealistic assurances unless they were given a script to read from. If all the conversations were done through chat, the transcript becomes a very good paper trail for you to direct your grievances to Dell. Couple that with the fact that you're months out without a PC, while Dell and other companies are shelling out deals sweeter than your non-existent rig, you should ask for something to sooth that wound. Maybe make that monitor free or something.

r72019 · Answer

@Darkfoxx Dell currently has a 10% off coupon code for the Aurora right now so you can if you want see if it would save you money to cancel and reorder with the 10 percent off.

Darkfoxx · Answer

I appreciate the reply and recommendation - I followed suit and canceled my original order, replaced with a new order with the K chip vs the KF, and took this new 10% off coupon. I also used Dell to finance and got 12 months no interest and 6% back via Dell Rewards... plus it looks like estimated delivery is about 3 days more than my original date anyway.

Let's just hope no more delays are on the horizon - but for this discount, I won't complain. Thanks again for your time!

GTS81 · Answer

I'm imagining the assembly line now with lots of "Hey! Throw me a non-K CPU! Another one of these orders just changed. We're sending the same rig only with different parts!"

EDIT: Yeah, I use Dell Financing too. With all the rewards points I've got, it's a perpetual free supply of mid-high range keyboards and mice (non gaming) for me.

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Aurora R11, Buying Experience

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