Extremely slow order

pjroberts

New member
Hello,

I ordered a desktop (ref 1395903), and it has been stuck in pre-production for three weeks.

The Orders page says that it's normal for orders to be in this state for several days (I would call three weeks many days!), and there is no indication of any progress.

Are you able to give me any idea about when it will be ready?

Thanks,
Paul
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
The estimated production times when you place an order

3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
are just an estimate. So as you're seeing, there can indeed be some variation...

The forums are mostly for the customer community so not many of us here will be able to tell you when it will be ready. I'd suggest giving PCS a call tomorrow to get an update on how things stand.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
That certainly sounds longer than normal, but as Oussebon says the actual build times do vary depending on the volume of business PCS have at any one time. The only way to be sure that all is well is to phone PCS (don't email, phone them).
 
I'm not far off that; ordered 25/07/18, 3 days in processing and been stuck in pre-production ever since.

Emailed them last friday and they've been swamped with orders so are massively behind. Would have been nice for them to proactively email rather than wait on people who have paid good money to chase up whereabouts.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I'd suggest feeding that back to them explicitly.

I entirely agree with you. While estimates are only that, if they find themselves going significantly over it's hard to see any harm in proactively letting people know - quite the contrary as people like yourself and the OP here are understandably concerned at the length of time without updates.

When I placed my first order with them iirc it was early Aug (2012) and also took a long time - and I did chase them by phone more than once iirc. I suppose they get a spike in orders due to Back To School / Uni and possibly relatively reduced staffing resource due to holidays.
 
I've had exactly the same problem. Mine was ordered on 29/7 and after a couple of emails and phone calls I was assured on Wednesday that they were aiming to have it despatched by the end of this week. They have now closed for the day and the build is still in pre-production. Emails are just going unanswered. I was even given an email of a particular person who assured me that he would chase the order through. Not surprisingly, emails to this person are also going unanswered. Having bought a system from here before I have no issues with the build but the customer service at the moment appears to be shocking. If they have a problem then at least be upfront and let people know.
EDIT:
I got an email the next morning (Friday) to say that build had started but not been updated on system and received an email at 02:29 this morning to say that it was now ready for despatch. Hopefully should see it beginning of next week. Must say I'm impressed by the speed it went through once they got behind it. Hopefully once it arrives the wait will be long forgotten.
 
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Well, after some gentle nudging mine is now showing 'In Building' having been built by J Nesbit. Hopefully some point next week i'll be getting my new baby.

I did suggest they provide ad-hoc updates when they have excessive order volumes and they just blanked that! Ah well, i'll know not to order my next pc in the school summer holidays!
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Well, after some gentle nudging mine is now showing 'In Building' having been built by J Nesbit. Hopefully some point next week i'll be getting my new baby.

Good news! :)

I did suggest they provide ad-hoc updates when they have excessive order volumes and they just blanked that! Ah well, i'll know not to order my next pc in the school summer holidays!

We've talked about the idea of regular updates several times before. My view (and I don't work for PCS) is that collecting the data to be able to give meaningful and regular updates has a cost and that cost would be passed on to us in increased prices. I know how frustrating waiting is, but it's a tiny fraction of the overall lifespan of the PC and I don't want to pay extra for my PC just to have regular updates during the build process. :)
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
collecting the data to be able to give meaningful and regular updates has a cost and that cost would be passed on to us in increased prices.
In fairness unless their CRM system sucks - or, to put it more delicately, perhaps lacks some features which one would expect from a modern system - identifying overdue contacts should be instantaneous and sending a mail merge to them should take a couple of minutes.

It could potentially even be automated.
 

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
and i'm stuck in work :(

At least it's not right behind you taunting you :) - that's what happened when I got my nice new monitor delivered to work - it arrived mid morning so it was sat behind me for the rest of the day and I'm sure it was busy taunting me!

The rest of the day will seem like it takes forever though, I think we can all guess what you'll be unpacking when you get home :)
 
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