I have been having what I consider to be significant problems placing an order for a Dell Latitude E4200.

You can read all about it here. http://www.colindiponio.com/category/dell/

I was hoping for a compromise in the form of a Seed machine or Loan/Review machine to tide me through until the late November delivery date of the E4200.

In fact the suggestion of a Seed machine came from Dell Partner Direct. But it would now appear I don’t meet their criteria. I can’t magic up an order for 20 of these.

So my options are:-

1) Break with a 14 year tradition of supplying 100% Dell Hardware and investigate solutions from HP or Lenovo. A decision that will impact on my choice of hardware vendor moving forward for me and my Clients.

I can’t for example take a spiffy Lenovo X300 into a Client and then offer to supply them Dell. I take pride in the fact I supply clients what I myself use (PowerEdge, Latitude, Precision and Optiplex).

2) Place an order for the Latitude E4200 and hurry up and wait for what will be a total of 72 days  from when I placed the original order.

3) Take the Credit Crunch / Economic issues seriously and don’t invest in any new technology.

As time ticks on and various people around the globe are receiving their E4200’s and I jealous? Sure The E4200 sounds great but it’s not all smooth sailing one Chap over at the forums on  www.notebookreiew.com is less than impressed (See Posts 45 and 72).

Link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=306454&page=8

So what now?

I asked in an e-mail to Dell Partner Direct earlier today if we had run out of options but I haven’t heard from them since?

For back story see: [Here], [Here], [Here], [Here] and [Here]  All these posts are about the trials and tribulations of ordering one single Dell Latitude E4200 laptop from Dell.

—

My Dell Partner Direct Account Manager called me late yesterday afternoon.

This was further to my e-mail earlier in the day asking for lead time confirmation and to ask if the  costs had changed.

I was re-quoted and the E4200 was £115 more expensive but we soon resolved that.

The next stumbling block is the current lead time. As you can see from the above that’s up to 36 days on top of the 35 days that have passed since I placed my original order.

I was told the hold up is the 1.4Ghz CPU.

I had to be honest with my rep without throwing my weight around. I’m not prepared to wait 71 days for a laptop product that Dell offer on their web site when I can order one off the shelf from HP or Lenovo.

The demand for the E4200 was clearly started too early, in the UK at least.  It has been featured on the Dell business site as an orderable product since September 16th. I ordered one on the 17th but with a Delivery date in the late Novembers its all a bit vapourware for my liking.

Disheartened but still brand loyal I asked about the availability of the E4300’s but they too have a long lead time.

Earlier in the day I spent an hour or so doing real research into alternative products from other vendors like HP, Lenovo and Sony. Specifically their small form factor laptops in the 12.1” range.

Ill be honest HP 2710p below is getting pretty near top of my list.

If the 2710p came with a faster CPU 2nd generation SSD I would be giving it some serious thought.

As it stands I have a call in with Dell to see if we can work out a deal on a seed unit or something to tide me over.

The reason why my order was cancelled was given as:-

“There was an error on our systems and the order did not download correctly and interface with the systems down in the factory.”

It sounds like I was spot on  in my post of yesterday:-

“I can’t help thinking something is really wrong inside Dell if the simple business of buying and selling fails so miserably.”

I am still shocked that the internal systems at Dell could allow this to happen. The order went from sales to the factory. There was a problem and the whole thing just stopped and disappeared down a black hole.

It took the customer to identify the order was cancelled. Now that can’t be right.

It sounds to me like Sales weren’t aware (or they would have fixed it).

I certainly didn’t know or was contacted or e-mailed.

Moving on…..

So I now have achieved one of my impossible missions finding out why the original order from 35 days ago was cancelled.

I had asked for the new lead time of a E4200 as the Dell UK Website worryingly indicates

“Due to unprecedented demand for this system, we regret to inform you of a prolonged delivery time on your order”

Sadly this information was not given. So 35 Days into the ordering process I am still unclear when I would actually receive a Dell Latitude E4200. So this morning I have e-mailed Dell Partner Direct and asked for confirmation on lead times.

If I have to wait 20+ Days then I am not sure I can afford to wait and will be forced to find another solution from HP or Lenovo. That would be sad because I have been ordering Dell’s exclusively since 1994.

One thing missing from my Voice Mail from Dell Partner Direct. An Apology.

I am glad this order is mine personally because if it were for a Client I’m not sure I could put a positive spin on what’s going on.

To read the other posts relating to this topic see here

2008/09/17/dell-in-slowdown-of-demand-as-dell-partner-direct-is-unresponsive/

2008/10/14/dell-cancel-my-latitude-e4200-order-but-dont-tell-me/

2008/10/17/i-still-have-issues-with-dell-partner-direct-in-the-uk/

2008/10/20/michael-dell-blogs-direct-to-it-decision-makers/

Michael Dell CEO of Dell computers has published his first customer facing blog post aimed at I.T. Decision makers. The link is here.

In his post he lets us know all about running a running a small or medium business in tough times?

Michael posts even have their own RSS feed (RSS Feed)

I am an I.T. decision maker, I run my own small business and times sure are tough so I guess I am your target audience.

However being honest dealing with Dell at times can be challenging. For myself and the benefit of others in the community I write about my experiences of dealing with Dell both good and bad.

So welcome Michael. It seems the accessible CEO is all the rage I hear Steve Jobs replied direct to a customers e-mail about fire wire on the new MacBooks the other day. See here.

Now if I could only get a Latitude E4200 ordered and lord knows I have tried I would be a happy man.

See:

2008/09/17/dell-in-slowdown-of-demand-as-dell-partner-direct-is-unresponsive/

2008/10/14/dell-cancel-my-latitude-e4200-order-but-dont-tell-me/

2008/10/17/i-still-have-issues-with-dell-partner-direct-in-the-uk/

I would be much happier blogging about cool Dell products like the e4200 that inconsistent and ineffective customer service.

Why Ineffective?

Well, Dell sells equipment and I want to buy some. I chose the spec, I placed the order, I gave the payment details, I dutifully read the Order Acknowledgement I received. I waited a month only to find my order cancelled without being informed.  The full gory details are contained in the posts listed above but I can’t help thinking something is really wrong inside Dell if the simple business of buying and selling fails so miserably.

What do I want?

I am about 5 weeks into the buying process and all I really want is someone to call me and:-

1) Explain what’s happened.

2) Give me the lead time of a E4200

3) Take my order assuming I am happy with the explanation and the current lead time.

Am I asking too much?

On Tuesday I found out the order I placed 30 days ago for a Dell Latitude E4200 was cancelled. However I was never told (See Here).

When I contacted My Dell Account manager, she was unavailable but the lady covering her calls then  promptly asked me for payment details so they could re-order.

I said before I was happy to do that I wanted to know two things.

1) Why was my original order cancelled?

2) What is the current lead time on a Dell Latitude E4200?

Sound reasonable, no?

She said she would come back to me but I have subsequently heard nothing that was three days ago.

I did recently have a brief conversation with James Wright the Dell Channel Marketing Manager when I was having issues getting Dell Partner Direct to even quote me (See Here). So I was hoping to avoid any further difficulties.

In this example I am both the end user and the consumer, it’s my money, it’s my choice.  I really don’t know what to think at this point.

I am the technology decision maker for my own business and that of my 250 end users. But it appears that still doesn’t give me enough juice with Dell Partner Direct in the UK.

One would imagine placing an order for a near top of the range business  laptop would be something Dell would be really keen to get right.

So last month when I saw they launched the Dell Latitude E4200 I immediately ordered one via my Dell Partner Direct Account Manager as I was in the market for a new business laptop.

I placed the order on the 17th of September and received an order confirmation the same day (pic below).

I was made aware that the Dell Latitude E4200 was getting a “Soft Launch” so I would have to wait until 21st October time frame. So I didn’t bother checking the online order status until earlier today only to find to my amazement my Order had been cancelled (See Main Picture).

Naturally I drop my Dell Partner Direct Account Manager an e-mail asking for clarification. The person covering my account managers issues confirms that the order was indeed cancelled but she did not know why?

27 days have passed since I placed my order, I am very confident I haven’t received any e-mail based notification of cancellation.

To date the closest I have got to a Dell Latitude E4200 is the picture below.

I ordered one, I gave payment details, I even got an order confirmation. What else do I have to do?

I find all of this rather disappointing and I know for a fact none of the procurement problems I  encountered would be acceptable to my Clients/Users.

At the time of writing It would appear if I want a Dell Latitude E4200 I have re-order it and start the process all over again or not as the case may be (a lot can happen in 27 days).

I really want to be blogging about how cool the E4200 is not how much of a headache it is to order one.

Updated 15:40)  Dell got in contact with me at lunchtime with a quote. Then a couple of hours later I was contacted by the Dell Channel Marketing Manager in response to the post below. So all my Partner Direct issues have been resolved. Thanks Guys.

Dell have announced they see a “Further Softening in Global End User Demand”. (Link)

So I was pretty surprised that I could not get in contact with anyone from Dell Partner Direct to give me a quote for these new Latitude E Series laptops.

Since Dell changed from having old fashioned account management I haven’t hooked up with my new account manager. So yesterday when I tried to register interest in a programme I am already enrolled in, I got nowhere.

I managed to log into the Dell Partner site and submit a request but as yet they have not contacted me.

A few hours later I contacted my old Account Manager and asked her to get one of the Partner Direct team to contact me. She CC’ ed me in on an email asking them to do so.

A day later still nothing.

So far for being enrolled in the Dell Partner Direct Programme all I have to show for it is a nice folder and some plastic pens with Dell written on them.

Through all these layers of CRM they can’t seem to respond to a customer who wants to spend money.

Meanwhile maybe the guys leaving comments over at engadget are right. Maybe the the E4200 is priced out of whack and Lenovo would be better value for money.

Engadget Comments Link

I wish I was posting about how excited I was about getting a new laptop today instead as a Dell customer feeling ignored.

Dell have announced on their Direct2Dell blog they will be offering extended warranties for those customers affected by Nvidia GPU issues.

I have previously written about these issues here and here.

From their Post

“Dell will offer a 12-month limited warranty enhancement specific to this issue. For all customers worldwide, we plan to add 12 months of coverage for this issue to the existing limited warranty up to 60 months from the date of purchase.”

The affected Dell models are the:-

Dell Inspiron 1420

Dell Vostro Notebook 1310
Dell Vostro Notebook 1400
Dell Vostro Notebook 1510
Dell Vostro Notebook 1710

Dell Precision M2300

Dell Latitude D630
Dell Latitude D630c

Dell XPS M1330
Dell XPS M1530

Considering Nvida caused this problem Dell are taking a lot of heat for it. So are HP and the other OEMs.

Reading the comments on the current announcement this is still not considered a satisfactory solution by the majority of users. A product recall/replacement is.

Link: Direct2Dell (Comments)

Another Interesting Link on this topic: Link

Web Site analytics are painful to decode at the best of times. But one metric that is usually sound is the number of unique visitors that your Web Site gets.

Unless your web site is super sticky commercial companies rely on being able to be found in Internet search engines like Google.

I monitor and report on the web stats for several companies spread over many different business classifications. In July 2008 on average and collectively the number of unique visitors dropped by 7% and this was unusual based on the pattern of web traffic in the preceding months.

July should have been a big month as it had 23 working days compared to June’s 21. My clients are UK based so would not have been affected by the American July 4th Holiday.

So what happened:

There are two possible things happening here:

1) Google changed dramatically the ranking algorithm.

or

2) The doom and gloom in the economy has affected the number of unique visitors looking for products and services from commercial companies.

I actually think its bit of both 15% Google and 85% the economy.

At some level there is a link between consumer confidence and web traffic to commercial companies.

When you ask customers to pay $99 for an online service it better deliver.

Having to report the loss of 10% of the affected customers e-mail over a multiple day period is frankly both shocking and embarrassing for any large tech company.

I think the only way  Apple can turn this around is to make Mobile Me free for six months. Iron out the bugs then let the consumer decide at the end of the term.

As it stands. Avoid.

Link: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/status/