Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Vancouver, BC. Canada
Posts: 57

I have a theory about the cause of this screwed up situation. Correct me if someone's already proposed this...

We all know that many early orders have not arrived. We also know that there have been cases of early orders arriving with two visors rather than one, and of double billing and multiple credit card authorizations. We also know that later orders seem to be coming to people with fewer problems.

I myself ordered in the first week, all my information has been correct all along, but as far as I can tell, nothing has yet been shipped.

So here's what I think happened:

In her letter to Melonboy (see http://www.visorcentral.com/visor/d...TML/000164.html )
Donna told him: "What happened was that some data was corrupted as it was sent from the order entry system to the shipping system. We have had an enormously difficulty sorting out the data, which has made it hard for the order folks to see status."

I think what happened is that in using paper or whatever they used the first little while, they didn't track, or lost track of what had been shipped and what hadn't. This can be seen even now when some people have called them, been told that their visor has not shipped, and then received it that day!

So now they have a whole pile of early orders, some of which have shipped and been billed, and some of which have not - and they are having a hard time working out which is which. To add to this, some of the orders are incorrect, and their system for correcting them is imperfect (to say the least).

So the CSRs can see your order but they don't always know if it has shipped or not. And Handspring is afraid to ship some of the existing orders, because they don't know if they've already gone out or not.

What do you think?
- Rubberdemon

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Posts: 49

I think that explains some of what has happened, but it certainly doesn't explain why, on three separate occasions, I've had to correct their problem with my order (see http://www.visorcentral.com/visor/d...TML/000174.html for details)

I think we're all looking for a reasonable explanation as to why there have been so many errors, why it has taken so long to fix them, and why they seem unable to fix them.

We try to figure this out from our end, as interested early adopters, because Handspring has not been very forthcoming in their explanation(s) for the initial order fulfillment problems......Every day seems to ilicit a new explanation from HS as to what the "real" culprit was/is......Every day there seems to be almost as many of us with problems as there were the day/week before.

If we really were Handspring's "highest priority" they would shut down current shipments for a day, fix the problems once-and-for-all, and continue business the following day.

Instead, we are left here Visor-less endlessly coming up with theories on why we are Visor-less.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Posts: 10

I think what adds frustration to it is that the people that you call at the 888 number don't have any of the information about what's going on at the warehouse, like have they recieved the corrections to your order or do they even have your order down as one that should ship. The whole reason that people call for status is to make sure that the company they've ordered from isn't making some sort of mistake with their order, and this customer service line can't get a lot of the information it needs to check that.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 70

Of Course, if they just shipped the things to us, we'd stop whinning, calling and generally helping to gum up the works more than they are...I know I'm in left field, but wouldn't in make more sense to take 2-3 days and sort out the Sept Gang/Early Oct problem, and then move on? the extra 2-3 should further agitate the later October orders, and we might actually start making nicey-nicey. Just a thought

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: College Station, TX
Posts: 143

I suspect that your theory about the transfer from paper scraps to database entries is basically correct, and that the later stuff is compounded by something stupid like how they set up the initial database. It has looked all along like the online orders and the phone orders were kept in separate databases and there is at least one thread here that suggests that people who have called the HS number about online orders that showed up on the web site as OK (while they were allowing us to check ourselves) were not showing up for the CSRs or "Donna's assistants".

I also suspect that the CSRs are not very well trained (...don't _you_ have a better job ) and that they are not updating database records correctly when we phone the changes in. There are some cgi based database interfaces where you can happily type in new info and nothing happens at all if you don't click the "submit" button...I suspect that something like that could be happening.

I'm also guessing that some CSRs are madly clicking the submit button over and over, leading to the multiple order records and deliveries.

Clearly they didn't do the ordering database correctly. Yes, I know that the people they hire should be pros, but there are a lot of people in every business who promise more than they can deliver and I suspect that HS found themselves being in that category by contracting with fulfillment and CS firms that couldn't make the grade. However, once you've put anything into a database, changing it midstream is a MAJOR pain.

They've been _far_ from perfect, but we should be careful not to kill HS for their learning curve mistakes -- "The perfect is the enemy of the good".

None of this says that folks don't have legitimate beefs with HS, and of course, as much as we would sometimes like to be cheerleaders for a cool new company, we have to be concerned about our own productivity. If this means punting and getting a Palm, for many of us the extra $$ is worth what we can get done in the interim. Time is money!

Of course, a perverse benefit of not having my visor yet is that until it arrives I have an excuse for missing boring and useless meetings! (I'm replacing a fried Palm Pro that I had become completely dependent on for getting me to meetings -- everyone in my department knows that I was dependent on it and that my Palm died)

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 187

From what I have gathered from the MANY conversations with CSR's is that the database which houses you information cannot be modified by the CSR. All of the changes go in on paper to a supervisor, and from there ????

Also, the database only updates once a week (on Monday), but changes made on paper do not show up as changes to the order database. It appears that there are some other fields that are in at least one of the databases that identifies that the order has been escalated and such, but the original "order" database remains unchanged. There may be another database that indicates changes, which may account for the cryptic "let me put you on hold while I check the other database" OR their "other" database may just be a paper file.

Also, the orders which HS is fixing do not appear to the call taker or the supervisors. HS is working on those orders in the background.

Just observations from a lot of conversations and emails.