Order Delays

So after an email conversation and a series of private messages I'd like to leave this update here for the community as this should be posted somewhere and doesn't appear to be.

The Nashvillle Tornado on 3/2 seems to have damaged some portion of the Dell partner facility and is causing delays in shipping and/or order fulfillment from that location. If your order required parts from this facility or had to be fulfilled from this facility you might be facing an extensive delay.

While this makes sense, and is understandable, I'm not entirely sure why this isn't up on a sticky thread somewhere and being told to customers placing orders up front. 

news article for reference: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/3/21163794/dell-fulfillment-center-nashville-tornado-buildings-damaged 

Seriously guys, in the interest of transparency and good customer service, this should be upfront and center when we're placing orders. Telling me a week after I placed an order that its going to be delayed a month is extremely bad customer service. 

Hi, I read through your concern and absolutely understand the situation. Yes, a small percentage of inventory was damaged and some orders are affected, due to Nashville Tornado. It is unfortunate that your's is one of the affected orders. I sincerely regret this inconvenience. 

I understand that order delays can be disruptive. But, I assure you that, We are committed to our customers, and are doing everything we can to get all orders back on track as soon as possible. We are working with impacted customers to ensure they receive their orders as soon as possible. Customers with disaster-related orders are evaluated for highest priority classification. 

I will closely follow the progress and keep you posted on the updates accordingly. 

-Pratheepan. 

I have purchased many (too many, if you ask my wife!  ;)) laptops from Dell Outlet, mostly Business Class Precisions.  In past, shipping was accomplished almost immediately and I would receive my computer within a couple days of order.  This time, Dell quoted a delivery date of just over two weeks after order.  I put this down to the tornado that had just occurred.  I understood the issues and was willing to wait.  Today I received an e-mail telling me that they may have sent me an e-mail with an estimated delivery date (they didn’t) and that they were working to identify a new delivery date, which sounds to me like it’ll be even farther in the future. 

What’s worse is that I’m seeing in this category other threads where this sort of problem appears to have already been occurring prior to the tornado hitting. 

I sure hope that my order isn’t delayed until April.  With the Coronavirus hitting as well, it is like everything is conspiring to derail the delivery process.  I agree, more transparency from Dell and status updates would be welcome. 

So now when I click on my order it errors out and says that it can't be processed. 

What in the world are you guys doing?

FWIW, mine still shows estimated delivery of 3/20/20, which is one week from now.  The order shows "confirmed" but not "shipped."  I have received no further e-mails since a couple days ago.  

Hi,

I understand your call out. We're sorry for the time this is taking. We see that our experts have raised a request to expedite the order. Please be assured that one of us will get back to you as soon as we have an update.

-Vanitha

Hope it stays that way for you, mine was "confirmed" for a week before I received the "delayed" message. 

Well, I just checked my status and it's been updated to an estimated delivery date of 6 April!  Well, at least this gives me plenty of time to reconsider and possibly cancel.  

I am dealing with a similar time frame and mindset on a Dell Outlet order. My only main issue is not the delay but I have had to consent to multiple delays within the past two days alone. They don't even notify me of the needed consent via email but only give me a 24 hour window before they cancel. If I did not check my order status directly, I most likely would not have known until it was cancelled. My current Estimated Delivery is 3/30 now for an order placed on 3/2. Due to the circumstances, it could be worse. 

So today I logged in to check the status of my order, and found a notification that if I did not provide "consent" to the delay then my order would be cancelled tomorrow. My order has been delayed for nearly two weeks (tomorrow will be 14 days). 

I did not receive a phone call about this "consent" nor an email, though Dell has both pieces of information.

When I opened this thread I was advised via private message that they would escalate my issue and get back to me within 2 or 3 days, its been over a week, and I've yet to hear anything. 

I believe its time for everyone that has these types of issues to open BBB and Attorney General complaints, clearly Dell has fallen back into old habits and no longer values either transparency nor customer service. 

Wow. That is incredible…in a bad way. I’ve been checking my order daily to see what’s up. They “updated” (read: delayed) my delivery date on Saturday and I haven’t received an e-mail or phone or any other notification of the "updated" date. I will have to continue to check every day. While I’ve toyed with the idea of canceling the order, I am getting to the point where I want them to honor this sale. I should have 3 years of on-site repair support, so if something’s wrong, they will have to keep working until they get it right.
My wife checked our credit card online, and it hasn’t been charged yet…so there’s that.
I am willing to be very understanding of the issues (natural disaster, Coronavirus, etc.) but this lack of transparency and backdoor cancellations that people are posting about cause me concern.

And I just received yet another private message with yet another "I'm very sorry" message with no other information, nothing addressing my complaint, nothing about these new "consent" messages and nothing about why we're not being notified that "consent" is needed or they'll cancel our order.

I know there are a few moderators floating around that are supposed to read these threads, but this really seems like a joke, clearly these employees aren't empowered to do anything to actually fix these issues, its all just platitudes and nonsense. 

I would just like to follow up and let everyone know that even though I had to consent to multiple delays, my order was shipped out 2 weeks earlier than they estimated. It does seem like they are trying to get everything squared away as quickly as they can. 

Greetings, 

I see that the order is delivered to you today. Hope your queries are answered. Is there anything else I could assist you with?

-Pratheepan.