Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 72

I tried to call yesterday and waited on hold for 2 hours before getting disconnected. I waited on hold today for 1 hour. The CSR told me that my 9/14 Visor had been shipped(coined script they read). After pushing to get a UPS tracking # or confirmation on my credit card, he then told me my Visor was on the "Problem List" They forgot a zero in my expiration date - A data entry error!! Go figure. I know I gave the correct expiration since I had the CSR read it back to me when I ordered.

I know this happened to someone else here. He was promised express shipping today. The manager is going to call me back and tell me if they can do the same for me.

This is not a rumor. This is FACT. This is Handspring's paper and pencil system in action.

Good news - the manager was courteous!

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 29

*This is not a rumor. This is FACT. This is Handspring's paper and pencil system in action.*

I guess you could call the selection of this call center Handspring's fault. Handspring is not the one screwing up from what I have heard. It is this CSR center that has really botched the job. I'll repeat what others have said, "This is what happens when you buy from a company before they even open their doors." (Not an exact quote)

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: los angeles
Posts: 14

They returned your call???

Yesterday I waited 1 hr 35 min, then 58 min before getting a human. The CSR then put me on hold for an additional 10 min only to return to tell me that she could not find my order: "lots of databases to go through". She informed me that she would have a Manager/SuperVISOR phone me back before the end of the day (it was around 10am). Do you think I heard back? NO!

So here I sit on hold for 87 min 48 seconds...

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 72

No they have not called me back. I did take down the supervisor's name. I asked him several times to make sure he calls me back so I dont have to wait on hold for 2 hours again.

Negative1 - Yes. It is an outsourced call center. But, Handspring hired them. So it is still Handspring's screwup. Whether contracted or their employees.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: los angeles
Posts: 14

...after 1 hr 48 min on hold I was disconnected...second try ONLY took an hour until the extremely pleasant CSR picked up, confirmed my order (placed on 10/05), and told me it would be shipping the beginning of next week.

She said as of today, the "dbase" is MUCH IMPROVED (her emphasis)!

She said that they were not taking orders for accessories, I asked about the 5 pack of Styli�s, but that the online store will be back up in a matter of days.

I'm crossing my fingers...

[This message has been edited by echo_park (edited 10-20-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 72

As I read through all these posts, it's interesting to see how many different ways Handspring is screwing up the fulfillment process. I read people getting too many visor's, too little visor's, wrong state, wrong credit card no, wrong price, not being charged, being overcharged, .... Yes, the list goes on.

Well I received my call back from the supervisor. He said my Visor shipped on the 16th and gave me a tracking number. I looked up the tracking number when I got home, and it only has an Oct 19th date on it at the North Bay Hub in CA. So I don't think it shipped on the 16th. I called UPS to verify the package was mine, and she didn't have the information. She said to try back tommorrow.

So is the package mine? Only God knows. Did they ship it with bad credit card information as stated previously? maybe. I don't know what to think now. I know someone here said they worked for UPS.

UPS VISORCENTRAL MEMBER -
Shouldn't the CSR at UPS be able to tell me where the package is going? She also couldn't tell me when the package was picked up.


Here is the tracking info...
---
PACKAGE PROGRESS
Date Time Location Activity
Oct 19, 1999 2:43 A.M. NORTH BAY HUB, CA, US LOCATION SCAN
---

I would bet money that people will get a free visor due to Handspring's screwed up fulfillment process. People have already received their visor's and have not been billed. Good luck to everyone in receiving their visor's and hopefully being the lucky ones to get a free one.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: North Arlington, NJ USA
Posts: 22

Gene,
The answer is no. You cannot determine the exact destination of the package based on the tracking number, until it has been delivered. Your best bet in tracking it and determining if it may be yours, would be to look for something like;

Oct 19, 1999 7:25 P.M. MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, OH, US LOCATION SCAN

The tracking used to show 'destination' scan, the day it arrived at the center. ie the day it would be delivered. The location scan, assuming it's close by, could help narrow things down.

Hope this helped.
LCM

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Urbana IL
Posts: 144

If the package is fully in the system then UPS should have the destination addy. However, this takes a day to process in sometimes.

As far as knowing when it was dropped off, that is hard to say. Many times you will see a 'Manifest Recieved' event prior to an individual location scan. This event doesn't reference the individual package so much as the entire shipment. The location scan is generally done within 24 hours though, and that is when the package starts moving.

I'm not a UPS employee, but I've shipped and recieved a lot of packages, so I pretty much know the system. This is sometimes painful, as I know exactly when an exception is going to occur on occasion.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: North Arlington, NJ USA
Posts: 22

Tiroth. Well it sounds right, but doesn't work quite that way. The first three digits of the zip code are what determines where a package goes. Eventually, everything gets sorted out finer & finer. The destination address is not captured to the best of my knowledge.
LCM

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 33

I read with interest all the 'experts' on VisorCentral who are so quick to criticize a process they have no first hand knowledge of.

The screwups were caused not by Handspring and not by the call center. The problems all started with the company that was contracted to do the Handspring web site. If that system had been in place on Sept. 14 the call center would not have received all the calls they did (and use an improvised system).

If you don't think I'm right, look what happened when the on-line store did go up. It crashed. If anything, the CSR's should be maybe not commended, but at least not blamed for the problems. They're just hired guns trying to do a job in the worst PR disaster in recent memory (since the New Coke fiasco?).

[This message has been edited by happyboy (edited 10-20-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Salem, OR, USA
Posts: 91

I had ordered a Visor standard thinking I would not find a use for the 8MB in the Deluxe, well, that's what I ordered, but I received a graphite Visor Deluxe today. But after playing around with it while waiting on hold for 2 hours and then being disconnected (and having filled up 4168 of 7936KB), I decided to keep it. At least this turned out to be a positive screwup. (plus more $$ for Handspring, 255.95 instead of 185.95)

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 72

happyboy,

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say or who your comments are directed towards.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 21

Hello all

I happen to work in a call center. I will not name it because it is very well known, and I don't want to hear the comments on it.. either way.

Anyway... what I've heard about in call centers... is people who will get the call, and immidiately disconnect the call... that way it registers as a call taken for them, cuts down their average talk time severely, and makes them look good. Also, I know... that a lot of newly hired people are going to screw up a lot. And, that is probably what's going on. HandSpring is throwing people right into the swing of things, and they aren't prepared for it, so they will miss numbers, forget to ask important questions, and forget to document things. Happens all the time, even more with brand new employees who weren't ready.

Sounds like they don't have a good quality assurance team together yet. One that actually listens to calls, reports on calls that are not up to par, and take action. Many of those people I talked about earlier, no longer work there.

Well, I don't know if this is the answer... but it sure makes a lot of sense to me. Luckily.. my order hasn't been screwed up. That's actually because I haven't ordered one. I'm waiting for more reviews.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 21

oh, the other thing...

we have menus in the call center that go to different cues. we will literally have one cue waiting over 40 min and another where the rep is waiting 15 min before a call comes in for them.

play with the menu... generally they won't transfer you. you might get in faster.

unless there's no menu, I don't know.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

Chipchen,

do fulfillment companies operate call centers? I thought that's the way it works. Would make sense, wouldn't it?

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Columbus, Ohio USA
Posts: 255

Whoever was asking about tracking a package through UPS.. it doesn't ALWAYS show every step of the trip. I've ordered over the web hundreds of times and there are times where I will see the departure scan and I won't know where the package is until it arrives on my doorstep. SUcks, but that's what happens sometimes.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Dublin, Ohio, USA
Posts: 9

HipHop,

I don't know about fulfillment centers handling calls but I strongly suspect not. My reasoning is I spoke with a CSR two weeks back and asked her as to where was I speaking and she replied Canada. no city given and I didn't ask further.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Buffalo NY
Posts: 40

I work for a call center also; they are very expensive propositions to keep up. In industries where precision and expertise is critical (e.g. banking,finance), they will typicaly maintain their own call centers. For fulfillment, order taking, order status, it is much less expensive to contract out. One center may handle the accounts of 20 companies. This allows them to maximize the staff, using the majority of CSRs to answer phones of the busiest lines. Sort of a triage situation.

I don't blame the call centers. Handsrping's errors created and extraordinary volume of calls and they did not adequately script the CSR responses which lead to multiple answers to the same questions. The call center is the conduit and it is awfully hard to staff appropriately when the client screws up the call projections.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 21

The call center that I work in actually is staffed by the same company. So... if I really wanted to... the shipping department is about 3 min away, somewhere downstairs.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 90

Let's say for instance that Handspring hires call center X, before they set up a number to recieve calls, and they give them a certain projection of number of calls.

Then the floodgate opens and it turns out they get 2x the number of calls, or more. The call center is overwhelmed.

Further, the projections call for an online store to be opened which will handle all orders after Oct. 6. The store promptly crashes and is retired, and the burden of order-taking shifted back to the call center. The volume of calls continues to go up, at a time when the call center had not planned to be taking *any* calls. Furthermore, the call center had been using a system that was designed to be *temporary* - so that, once orders are sent to the warehouse to be fulfilled, they are no longer immediately accessible to the call center folks.

The call center does their best to handle the calls. But there are problems. Somehow the CSRs are constantly giving out conflicting information to people who call about their orders. Email confirmations that were promised are never sent, prompting more calls to check on order status. The CSRs cannot check on order status for most customers, because the information is no longer accessible to them. The online store stays down for a full two weeks...or longer.

Who do you blame?...I'm afraid you've got to blame Handspring. They did not have an adequate back-up plan in place for when the order volume exceeded their expecations. The call center wasn't able to turn on a dime for whatever reasons. They couldn't double the number of CSRs overnight, or even within a few weeks. They certainly couldn't plug in another order-taking system overnight. And the online store was tragically inadequate - it was up for a couple of days at most, during which time most customers couldn't access it, and then it swiftly collapsed and has been MIA for two full weeks.

OK, say you're in charge of ordering and fulfilment for Handspring. For whatever reasons, you made these mistakes in planning your ordering procedure. Maybe you were trying to please your backers by setting up the most cost-effective ordering system possible. Now you're in the soup. What do you do? Here's some possibel suggestions:

Send someone to hang around the call center all the time. Make sure that the CSRs are saying something consistent. Maybe they won't be able to give out all the information that customers would like, but make sure they are consistent and, to the best of your ability to judge, truthful in the info they give out. Walk around the call floor yourself if you have to.

At the same time, start IMMEDIATELY shopping for another call center to help handle the calls. It may have to be in another part of the country altogether. The economy is booming right now, unemployment is low, workers are in short supply, but perhaps you can manage to find someplace that can handle a high volume of calls. Once you've located the place, send someone to babysit them with similar instructions: Supervise the order taking. Keep an eye on what information is given out. Do everything you can to expedite the orders going out for shipment.

Communication is really the key.