Twas a balmy day in September. The Wii U had been announced, and I’d been pedalling all year to afford it: one was ordered from Zavvi. Cries of “No! Not Zavvi! You’ll never get it on time!” abound. But a £75 saving, and therefore a 75 mile saving, was too good it miss. Although it nearly was missed. Read on!
Everything went quiet. Nothing happened for weeks. After all, the release date wasn’t until November the 30th. I preordered Mario from Tesco and waited.
Then, on Tuesday the 27th, there was a flurry of activity. Some people were getting dispatch notes from Amazon and Tesco. Some people received their consoles from Amazon. Many got “dispatching soon” messages from various retailers. Zavvi said nothing.
I emailed them and tweeted them and sent a message through their order query system. No reply. Nobody else got replies either. I wasn’t too concerned. It was only Tuesday.
On Wednesday, more people took delivery of their Wii U consoles. More still got dispatch notes. Us Zavvi folk – nothing. OK, so with next day delivery, still no panic. Except we weren’t even getting confirmation we were going to get a Wii U, let alone when it was being dispatched. More emails/tweets/messages. I even tried calling: No answer.
At 3:30pm my order status changed to Awaiting Dispatch. I got a tweet saying it was due to be dispatched, and would be with my on or before Friday. Hoorah!
Then at 4:40pm I got a message from their order query tickets. To paraphrase: “Dear sir, you ordered a Wii U and we’ve not got any so we’ve cancelled your order. Have a nice day!”. RAGE. I quickly tried to order from Tesco (no stock) and Shopto (wouldn’t deliver to my work address) so I resigned myself to having to browse the local supermarkets on Friday. Bah.
Later that evening, I have fiftybillion tweets and messages telling me to ignore all previous tweets and messages and the One True Message was that yes – I was to get a Wii U, no – it hasn’t been cancelled, and yes – it’ll be with me by Friday. Probably. Rage subsided. I was happy that things were being dealt with and, better still, a few minutes later the delivery company DPD emailed me to say my order from Zavvi had been dispatched. YES.
The following morning (Thursday) presented me with a new problem. DPD’s tracking said the Wii U was in Warrington. Still in Zavvi’s depot, in fact. They’d not picked it up. DPD responded quickly to my tweet and said Zavvi hadn’t actually given them the whole shipment, so many people (everyone, it seemed from Twitter) were not going to have their Wii U delivered today. Worse, was that DPD didn’t have it, and Zavvi said they didn’t have it either. So why did I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?
No response from Zavvi all day again. And here lies the main problem with Zavvi: no communication.
I stewed all day. Would I get a Wii U from Zavvi? Where was it? What if they find it after I’d bought another? Then who was phone? Nothing. It was nowhere. Dispair. ARGH.
Thursday. 5pm. DPD’s tracking springs into life: A parcel arrived in their Birmingham sorting office. The game was back on! There was still a chance to have it on Friday! I told them to fly like unicorns. Then went to bed.
Friday. 2am. DPD’s tracking said my Wii U was just 20 miles from me! 6am. Out for delivery between 11:32 and 12:32!
Friday. Noon. WII U IS HERE!
Lessons for Zavvi to learn: I know they were busy. It was a console launch and it’s the start of the big Christmas shopping season. I realise they’re not going to respond immediately to every message and query. I know they’re going to be hard to contact by phone. I understand this. However – given the sheer number of queries and complaints they were receiving about the Wii U, why didn’t they just email all customers and say “We’re busy but we’re working hard to get you your Wii U by launch day. Please bear with us.”? Why not tweet the same thing? And put it on their site?
Everything was fine in the end (for me – I know some didn’t get theirs until Monday), but a quick message to say it would all be OK would have smoothed everything out right away.
I haven’t really had an experience to match yours, but I know how frustrating it is when you’re waiting for something that’s overdue and you’re torn between waiting a little longer and ordering elsewhere – and potentially receiving your original order whilst you wait for the new one… 😐
Still, congrats on sorting it out. 😀
It’s all the worse when it’s EXCITING NEW SHINY enroute!