After almost 20 years of Dells, I have finally given up and switched brands.  First, this isn't really meant as a rant against Dell (I loved Dell which is why I've bought so many), but hopefully if they hear enough of these stories they will try and get back to the old days of being #1 in customer service.

 

I was looking to replace my XPS600 with an XPS 720.  I ordered my first one, but after 8 days Dell simply cancelled it due to a backordered part.  After many hours on the phone I finally found out that is was the monitor that caused the cancellation so I reordered the system without a monitor.  I then ordered the monitor separately and it shipped the same day I placed the order. 

 

Well, the estimated ship date came and went on the second system (even though the original ship date still showed on the order status page).  I spent two days on the phone (literally) trying to find out what was delaying the shipment and trying to get an new estimated ship date. The problem is that I seemed to get different stories from different customer service reps.  One told me it was my graphics card (nVidia 8800GTX), one said he couldn't get that information and, believe it or not, one told me it was most likely the monitor (remember, I ordered the system without the monitor).  As for the new estimated ship date, one told me August 31st and another said there wasn't one.  When I told that person that someone else had quoted me August 31st, he told me that that wasn't really a good estimate, it was simply arrived at by adding 2 weeks to the orginal estimated ship date which was August 17th.

 

I will miss Dell but they could learn a thing or two from some of these smaller companies (or at least remember things).  For example, whereas Dell has reduced the number of different steps in their order status page (down to just processing, in production and shipped), Puget lists almost 50 different steps as they assemble and test the system so you can follow exactly what is being done with your system. 

 

Again, I'm not a Dell basher and wish everyone else who is struggling with getting orders shipped the best of luck.  I'll continue to visit these forums (I still will have my XPS 600 and Inspiron e1505) and hope to see some improvements.

 

So, today, I cancelled my order and placed an order for a new system with Puget Custom Computers.  They are more expensive but they take a real personal interest in each order/customer.  They talk to you (even the president of the company answers questions on their forums) and walk you through each step of the process.