I called Toshiba again this morning. The customer service rep told me that the official ETA for my laptop is still listed in their computer as Jan. 22nd. Two days ago. She and I got a good chuckle over that. She has no other information, and she can't get any today because it's Saturday. She told me my best bet was to call back on Monday, when they should be able to get someone from operations to give them better info.
She told me some other interesting things. Apparently operations updated all of the ETA's last weekend, pushing them all out with no explanation. So all the customers have been calling in wondering what's going on. I also asked her whether she was a Toshiba employee, or whether Toshiba outsourced its call center. She said she's a Toshiba employee (I give this a 70% probability of being true -- she gave kind of a funny answer).
So let's fit the pieces together here:
- Operations pushed out all the ship dates, in the post-Christmas lag when business should be slower.
- Operations and customer service are very poorly connected, even though their call center is not outsourced.
- IT systems are not integrated, and no one has good information.
- Call center hours are extremely limited. You only do that if you don't care about customer satisfaction, and you don't think that staying open longer will give you more sales.
My gut says there's something bigger going on here. Toshiba must be in a world of pain. My gut also says "short the stock."
4:22:43 PM  ; ;
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