5/5

posted Aug-12-2012

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UPDATE

Within 12 hours of posting this, I received a phone call and an email from Jason, the Customer Service Manager over at Xotic. I was in a meeting at the time, but we scheduled a brief conversation for later in the morning.

Jason made much from that conversation. He was engaged and passionate about Xotic’s customer culture, and directly addressed elements from my write-up in his narrative. He worked with UPS to re-route the delivery, and very quickly had everything wrapped up and confirmed back in my inbox.

Without any prompting he gracefully wove in a complimentary gift and made sure there weren’t any other outstanding issues. All this happened while I was still in meetings, so it was a pleasant surprise to come back to my inbox to find everything resolved and addressed.

Jason’s energetic and thoughtful attention was exactly what all the reviews on this site had led me to believe about Xotic back when I had done the initial research. He spoke directly and tactfully to the issues and left me slightly stunned. These guys are the real deal.

With faith restored, I now eagerly await the unit (and will post a final update then, in the interest of due diligence).

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[Original]

Well, I guess everyone's experiences may differ. After a significant amount of research, I landed on Xotic PC for a recent [expensive] laptop purchase. My decision was buoyed by the rave reviews on this site. My experience so far hasn't been outright disastrous, but nowhere near deserving of the effusiveness of these reviews.

Where others seem to have had "wonderful" and "amazing" customer service experiences, mine have been "distant" and "perfunctory".

Xotic lived up to its promise to be flexible after order submission, but I grew to realize this was due to Xotic's policy, not any inherent desire to please by my assigned agent.

My requests were fulfilled, but sometimes required prodding. For instance, after a change of heart prompted me to ask about skin and lighting options after the unit was in production, I didn't get any confirmation of the inquiry. After posing the question again the following day, I was then told my agent was waiting on an answer (but did not bother to mention it).

Two days passed before I got a sudden change to my order status for the skin. I had to ask once more about the lighting options to be then told I had no options for the unit I purchased. Which is fine-- but I ended up asking that particular question 3 times before it was answered days later.

Also, when it became clear that the build was taking very long, I realized shipping might coincide with an impending vacation (the vacation was a full month after the order was placed). My agent scored a point by offering to contact me before the laptop shipped in case I needed to change the shipping address (she had already changed it once).

But she lost that point when instead of simply responding with an update, sent me a generic "when your order is ready, you'll get a tracking number" response from a do-not-reply address.

Not only was the response dismissively generic, but it was flat-out incorrect: we had agreed she would contact me PRIOR to shipping to confirm the address. So out went another email asking her to confirm this agreement, which she did.

But I guess I then wasn't surprised when my next email from Xotic was a "your order has shipped!" update. My agent did not contact me as promised, and my last email to her ("how do you explain this?") was simply ignored. I haven't heard from her since.

And sure enough, if the delivery date is correct, I now won't be at the address to which the shipment is heading, due to vacation. So rather than throw good time after bad, I'm going to now stop trying to get blood from a stone and will try to work out delivery re-routing directly with UPS.

Perhaps my agent is new-- at one point I received an email meant for another customer who seemed to be disputing some international shipping or some such thing. I never got a "please disregard" or anything like that. Not that I needed it, but it ended up being symptomatic of the overall tone and quality of the experience.

In other words, the service I got was perfunctory and lacked any pretense of interest or warmth. My confidence eroded as the exchanges unfolded, so the error at the end and abrupt silence did not surprise.

This is longer than I intended, so I’ll wrap up with two more quick points:

When a close friend also decided to upgrade his rig, he asked me if I recommended Xotic. Based on the above, my response was “At this point I honestly don’t know…”. After some discussion, we decided to experiment—he’s placed an order with another outfit, and we’ll compare notes after the fact. The winner of that round will get our NEXT rig upgrade order when that time comes around (or neither, depending!).

And lest you think I’m completely oblivious to the actual PRODUCT itself, I haven’t yet received the unit, so I can’t comment on its quality, accuracy of build, etc. I started this whole enterprise very optimistic, but now I’m just cautiously waiting it out. (Maybe I still harbor optimism: my 3 stars assume an excellent unit.. if I get it and there are problems there, I’ll reduce it accordingly, if I can).

I just felt the need to bring some sobriety to the customer service euphoria painted here.

This review was modified by Diachron on August 13 2012 07:35:54 PM

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