Tivo Customer Service is terrible! - (cancel order)

TiVo's CS sure does suck.

Didn't someone say it's illegal for them not to allow canceling before the order has shipped? You might want to check some of the other threads for a link to file a complaint with the FTC.

I guess I still don't understand why you had to cancel? What was so urgent about the purchase?

 

Yeah, I have no idea why TiVo is doing such an awful job with this. Hopefully this supposed new system they implemented (the purported reason for the shipping troubles this and last week) will help. If not, they need to get out of the business of seeling hardware...

 

Advertisements

no consolation to you but last week the Series 3 fianlly was available at tivo.com. It was a hotly anticipated new product from TiVo and they were flooded with orders, had implemented a new order processing system to deal with the load and generally became two to 4 days behind in processing within an hour of starting online sales of the S3.


two weeks earlier and most likely you would have been talking about how fast they shipped it out. Unfortunately instead with the bad timing you are stuck in the middle of the S3 shipping mess. not your problem or fault just the background of what was going on.

 

You order, 1 business day later they say it'll ship that night, the next day you call and they confirm it has shipped (all sounds kosher so far). So were you just throwing a tantrum because they didn't have your tracking number in their system yet? Sounds petty to me. Just because the CSR didn't have a tracking number handy doesn't mean that it hadn't shipped yet. It's also not that odd that they'd refuse to cancel an order after they've already shipped it to you.

I'm no TiVo appologist (I'm actually pretty dissapointed with the last update's performance issues), but I don't really see anything they did wrong here other than having a long wait time.

 

I actually ordered another S2 DT on the same day the S3 was released. I had no problems getting order confirmation or the tracking #. The item came very quickly as well. I tend to think they used a different company to handle the S3 orders. Otherwise mine would of been affected as well.

 

Jikan,

Sounds to me like you have very unrealistic expectations. I can't say whether TiVo's CS is good or bad these days, but your issue is really a non-issue.

Standard shipping methods (Fedex, DHL, UPS) is going to ship next BUSINESS day. Not on Saturday or Sunday. You order Friday morning, it'll ship Monday. Calling Tuesday and having a temper tantrum when we're dealing with one business day sounds a little silly.

I understand if you needed it quickly, but then you should just have gone the retail route in the first place. If you were saying you called them a week later and it still hadn't shipped, and you hadn't received reasonable communications and explanations, fine. But dude, it was one day.

Me thinks your impending wedding might be stressing you out a bit

 

To be fair, from my read of the OP (and of course taking into consideration that the OP is going to paint the rosiest picture of his own actions and paint the most nefarious picture of TiVo's actions), I don't see this as a good example of bad customer service.

My read is that the OP made unacceptably rash decisions and didn't do enough research before making the purchase. The "tell me what I want to know now or else" routine was very confrontational and I feel relatively unreasonable, when dealing with a small company like TiVo. Saying, specifically, "well that isn't exactly easy to find that now is it?" is unequivocally confrontation -- downright provocative. The next bit, threatening to cancel the credit card, was outrageous. Cancelling a credit card when you know that charges you did indeed authorize (though regret) are coming through should be illegal IMHO -- I see it as little different from cancelling a check that you know that the payee is going to cash.

I think customers should be held up to as high of a standard as they hold companies up to. How would you feel if a company that you called for pre-sales information pressured you to buy now or get off the telephone? How would you feel about a customer service agent being snarky with you? How would you feel if you cashed a rebate check only to have it returned for insufficient funds?

TiVo isn't perfect, but I think this thread points out just what is wrong with us, the customers, not what is wrong with them. I'm no TiVo apologist either. Check out some of the other threads and you'll see that I feel they've really messed up with the Series 3, on many levels. This, however, isn't one of them.

 

Bicker, I beg to differ. (heh, heh - sorry, I could not resist...

The OP clearly stated the problem was TiVos poor customer service related to their inability and unwillingingness to provide shipping information, not delivery time. Plus, TiVo hides its cancellation policy to make it even more difficult for customers to take action when TiVo's service is bad.

Frankly, I for one, applaud the OP's willingness to cancel his credit card in order to prevent TiVo from charging him for products and services they had not delivered. TiVo's cancellation policy (or lack of) is unreasonable and should not be supported.

 

Oh, your getting married. That explains everything. It's all about "venting" about the little insignificant things because you don't want to discuss the real "elephant in the room" - just keep ignoring it. You're doing a great job so far.

 

Not to pick sides here, but I'm glad that I'll never have business dealings with the OP.

 

Yes I know -- which I believe was an unacceptably rash action and based, at least in part, on being uninformed.

Oh gosh. [SARCASM]He actually had to read something to learn about the terms and conditions of the multi-hundred dollar purchase being made. [/SARCASM] Sorry, no sympathy there. It's the same old cop-out that folks with buyer's remorse chant every time they want to shift responsibility for something onto someone else -- all because they don't want to take their responsibilities as a buyer seriously.

 

He was going to get the DT, however the goal was to have it up and running while they are gone. If TiVo had not charged his card, most likely it has not shipped, Right? He should call TiVo if he does receive the box to workout shipping the TiVo pack.

 

People who say they love TiVo and then threaten to leave when the commitment is up, is a joke. If you really like TiVo then it shouldn't matter if the CS people are bad. The TiVo service far out weights the CRAPPY cs people any day of the week.

 

If I'm not mistaken, if you buy a DT TiVO through TiVo inc, I think they make you get a bundled deal. In light of this, especially since you already have another TiVo, I think you're better of buying thru retail and only paying $6.95 per month for the service.

 

My credit card was charged 2 days after I received my DT Tivo. Many items I purchase online don't get charged to my cc until sometime after it has shipped, usually before it arrives - but not always.

The OP got his panties on a wad over nothing.

 

Did you know that if payment is not received and a customer is within contract, their service is not cancelled within 30 days of activation (activates during shipping, at this time card is charged) account will auto cancel and that customer is sent to collections. If the customer receives the unit, cancel service, but doesn't get that box back in the stated time frame at time of cancellation, the card on file is charge the retail price of the unit. Once again, if the card can't be charged, the customer is sent to collections.

Also, which shipping option did the OP choose? If it was 1 day or even 2 day, I could understand, however, when you place an order on line it states to allow 48 hours for the order to process, plus if the OP chose ground shipping that is an additional 5-7 business days that the customer could wait to receive the order.
Don't blame tivo cs for not having the tracking number. They are not the warehouse and don't ship them out themselves. They rely on another company's system to have that info imported into their system. If they don't have access to the tracking number there is nothing the CS can do. Sounds to me like the agent told you as much as they knew, with in the time frame that you called cu, your order should've shipped. Things could've been worded differently so that the OP didn't think it absolutely without fail went out, but we are human, could've been a new agent, or could've been an agent that had been dealing with who knows how many calls asking the same thing, only about the Series 3 not the DT.

 

Maybe there's some mythical great PVR company that works out of the magic forest, but where exactly is a customer going to leave to that offers great customer service? Cable or Satellite?

lol

-smak-

 

Absolutely NOT an excuse that is feasible. Tivo should have known that they would get a heavier order volume and made plans to deal with it, by increasing the number of people handling orders and working more hours to handle the increase. This should have been transparent to their customers.