Dell Customers Voice Dissatisfaction Over Venue Pro Launch Delay
Dell is continuing to receive negative feedback from customers upset at the perceived lack of communication regarding the release of Dell's Venue Pro smartphone.
Dell had planned to begin shipping the Venue Pro Dec. 9, but customers have yet to receive their devices, and over the past week they've been discussing the matter on Dell's community forum. One poster said Dell's customer service had mentioned manufacturing issues, but wasn't able to pinpoint this as the cause of the delay.
On Tuesday, Dell confirmed that it has delayed shipments of the Venue Pro while it tries to fix problems with devices that have already been sold at Microsoft retail stores. These include issues with Bluetooth connectivity, inoperable SIM cards, and insufficient SD card memory allocation.
A Dell representative who posted as "Amy B" offered some answers to the disgruntled posters on Dell's community forum. "Right now, Dell is trying to coordinate a plan with Microsoft to address these issues for the early adopters. From what I understand, it may require another hardware swap. Further, the Venue Pros are being reworked in the factories to address some of the issues and we are awaiting these changes so the product can ship. This is affecting new orders as well," the spokesperson said.
However, the spokesperson didn't offer a specific time frame for when the Venue Pro issues would be resolved. "Once we have good stock in place, then we have the ability to provide replacements. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a good estimate of when that will be. The news I hear changes daily and I hate to give you information that won’t be true tomorrow.
"While I agree that this was not the best mobile device launch, I hope you take comfort in the fact that there is a good reason for the delays - fixing issues," the spokesperson said.
In response to Dell's attempt at damage control, poster "Kymera77" wrote, "While I applaud fixing issues as a valid reason to delay a launch, waiting until orders are supposed to be arriving is not the proper time to state that issues are still being fixed and nothing has been sent to production yet. This information is not a trade secret."
Noting that they had not received an e-mail updating the time frame for the shipment of their device, several posters were upset that they had to log on to Dell's site to check their order status, and they once again raised the issue of communication and service, pointing out that Dell had made no effort to compensate those who preordered the phone.
Poster "bernajo" wrote, "The problem I have is that Dell waited to tell me this until the day I was supposed to have my order. Dell has not offered the customer anything to rectify the situation. No coupons, discounts upgrades to the 16 gig units. Basically we are told deal with it or cancel."
"I keep asking myself if I want to commit to a company who services their customers in this way," "bernajo" said.
Next: Dell's Communication Issues
Problems with the Venue Pro began surfacing last month. On Nov. 24, Dell forum poster "xer21" cited a long list of issues with the device ahead of its release, including the quality of the device's built-in camera, as well as difficulties with the device's touch operability due to its uniquely curved screen.
In addition, the poster cited what has become a running theme among Dell's customers and partners -- the problem of communication.
"As for communication, Dell is not being responsive and seems unaware of issues," "xer21" wrote, recommending that Dell "keep the community updated, respond to each issue here specifically and try to provide extra timeline information, let us know what you're doing to fix these issues, we will all be happy then."