OcUK has fallen apart.

[Flinty187]

I've been using this company for about 8 years. They used to be good.

The last two orders I have made have been a complete failure, and (considering the competition) I won't be using them again.

I made an order (all items in stock). Paid the pricey next day delivery, and the next day...
Nothing. No dispatch notification, no delay notification. No delivery.
I eventually got through to customer services and arranged a refund.

This time, I made an order and on the due date (today), I realised there has been no notification.
Customer Service is via ticketing link hidden away in a bunch of text.
After sending a question, I received the following:

The following items will be sent to follow:
<name of item>

That's the whole message. Does this mean the other items have been? Are being sent? Why were they listed as in stock? Is the rest of the order coming?

I noticed something about delays on the accounts page. This is not listed anywhere during the buying process though. I imagine it's the usual Covid excuse which every other company has stopped using now (as it was wearing a bit thin).

So I don't know if my order has been shipped. It won't be complete when it arrives (great, I'll build half a PC), and I am given no indication of when it will arrive.

Given this experience, why would I order from this company again when there are plenty of alternatives who will deliver on time, send out dispatch notices, and reply to customers???

Hopefully customer services will get back to me to so I can cancel the order, and order from somewhere else.

 

[Shovinus]

Your first order was on 27/12, which being Christmas, we were closed on, unfortunately, also the 28th, hence why it didn't dispatch the same day or even the next day.

Your second order was made on 17/01 at 16:09, unfortunately this was:
a) After the cut off time of 16:00 for same day dispatch - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/delivery-options
b) Out of stock for the fans that you had purchased, though bear in mind you had purchased 3 of the fans even though the stock level for that fan was 1, in fact the stock level for the fan had been 1 since the 12th, a fact that is stated on the website even now that you have cancelled your order the available stock level has gone back to being 1.

You called on the 18th and asked why the order had not been shipped and the sales guys back ordered the fans for you (with free shipping) so the rest of the items could ship, despite you ordering an item that wasn't in stock to match your order.
This back ordering is what triggered the "The following items will be sent to follow" email with the subject "631#####(OC443####) Backordered due to stock shortage"

For both orders you were sent an email with the Subject "Your order has been received" and details of the order, the first order the email was delayed due to an issue on our systems which wasn't fixed until later in the day (being Christmas and being closed I didn't see the error until about 19:00 to fix it) the second was sent 10 minutes after your order. Why you have no seen these I am not sure, we use an email handler that is very good at getting messages to customers without them going into spam, but maybe yours have?

I apologize that the process hasn't been as smooth for you as you wished, but as you can see most of the reasons stem from your actions and choices and not from things within our control, yes we are currently understaffed due to covid and yes like most companies suffering from 1 or 2 delays here and there, but nothing crazy, in general managing to keep on top of everything very well with our wonderful staff going out of their ways to try and make everyone's experience as good as they can, even working overtime to fill for the multiple members of staff isolating with covid.

I am putting all of this on here to both explain the situation to you but also to others as you are not disclosing the entirety of your story.

Is there places we could improve? Yes, but in this situation the only real failings I can see is
a) Not putting a massive red box to tell you the fans you wanted only have 1 of the 3 fans you wanted
b) Maybe not displaying the Christmas opening times clearly enough for you?
c) Not getting an email to inform you of your order being short of stock fast enough.

All of which I will put forward to my manager as things to try and improve, though to be honest we are already looking to improve many of these functions so hopefully in the coming weeks and months these will get better anyway (Programmatic improvements in development)

Again I am sorry that things didn't go well for you and am not trying to say we did everything amazingly, but please try and have some understanding for the reasons.

 

[Josh]

What a response! Love that

 

[Vish Petrol]

ENDED

 

[MissChief]

Apply water to burn.

 

[Mr Badger]

The customer is.

 

[Fluffybob]

Need to start stocking Aloe Vera to cope with that burn................... Well said @Shovinus

 

[Minstadave]

Someone call the fire brigade!

 

[xb8browney]

Shock as ordering around the holidays causes delays.

 

[ProfGunna]

Woof. That'll do it. Typical crappy customer giving half a story and then getting rinsed by CS. Good job.

 

[Flinty187]

While the flames might be good for morale, they probably don’t provide much in the way of constructive feedback, so I will try to do so in a pleasant manner…

Just so you know… I have worked on implementing checkout and ticketing systems, so I understand how difficult, time consuming, and expensive it can be to get them all working in way that pleases the majority of customers. And also, that there are some customers you just can’t please

While you may be correct when you say “the reasons stem from your actions and choices” I’m not so sure about “not from things within our control”

Do you imagine that I knew that the fans were not in stock, ordered them anyway, then complained when they didn’t arrive the following day?

Is it my fault I didn’t check the stock level?
Is it my fault if I don’t check to see if I’ve filled in the subject line of email?
Is it my fault if I close a Word document without saving it first?
I’m sure you can see what I am getting at.

So why do you have this annoyed customer? I would say it’s this:
The automated system allowed me to get into a situation where I believed my order was being delivered the following day. Imagine you are expecting a delivery from a supplier – you no doubt make decisions based on the that delivery date.

So in answer to “Not putting a massive red box to tell you the fans you wanted only have 1 of the 3 fans you wanted” – Yes, you should make it quite clear to the customer that they might have made a mistake which will delay the completion of the full order. Like Word does if you haven’t saved a document.

Why “should”? Because annoying as it is, some of the competition does. Given the choice between having to be very careful or knowing that the site will warn you, where does the customer go?

In regards to no emails… I’ve phrased that badly. I did receive an initial conformation email. It didn’t mention backorder nor an estimated delivery date.

The following is what a received from a competitor (this is not meant as a criticism in any way, just showing the difference):

Order placed email (much the same as yours).
Order received email (superfluous in my opinion, but no harm done).
Payment authorised email (again, seems unnecessary).
Order picked email (now I know things are happening).
Order dispatched (now this is the big one… I’ve been given a delivery date, and a tracking number).

It’s fine not to have things in stock. It’s fine to close over Christmas. B&H Photo close for ridiculous periods of time.

As I customer I need to know when I need to be home to collect a parcel. I need to restructure my schedule around IT tasks. When I get to the checkout and pay for next-day delivery, I’m expecting a next-day delivery. I just need more information than was offered.

I understand that no company wants to write “we have no idea when this will get to you” on their website. If there had been somewhere in the checkout process where I was notified, I would had cancelled the fans and ordered an alternative (either from you or another supplier) and continued with the order. If I had received some indication that I had missed the cut off period, I wouldn’t have been expecting it the next day.

I think disappointment in delivery is quite a big issue these days. I’ve noticed more and more eBay sellers will put “2-5 day delivery” in their listing, then dispatch the next day with 1st class postage. While you have put a notice on the site, I didn’t see it until logging into my account after I had completed the order.

You say “This back ordering is what triggered the "The following items will be sent to follow" email”
Can I ask why it wasn’t until the next day that I received the information. Just unlucky that the system was having issues at that time? Was it triggered manually?

I appreciate that you were prepared to send the additional items without additional postage costs. In fact, any issue I have has been down to automated systems. You say you are working on these anyway, so apologies if this message comes across as patronising – I’m just trying to express my experience as clearly as possible.

I have no idea if I am representative of your normal customer base. Perhaps these are things that aren’t so important to them. To me, knowing when my items will arrive really important in terms of my time which has financial consequences.

Overclockers has been one of the first sites I check when buying new computer equipment for many years. Although the components I was ordering hint and at expensive purchases from elsewhere, that was due to you (and most other suppliers) being out of stock due to the extreme shortages then.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Indisputable facts

That all seems pretty fair.

 

[Mason-]

To be fair, if the system knows that it has 'x' of an item in stock and a customer puts 'y' of that item in their basket and proceeds to checkout (where y > x) surely it's easy to post a warning saying, you are trying to buy 'y' quantities of 'product' but only 'x' are in stock?

 

[MissChief]

To be fair, if the system knows that it has 'x' of an item in stock and a customer puts 'y' of that item in their basket and proceeds to checkout (where y > x) surely it's easy to post a warning saying, you are trying to buy 'y' quantities of 'product' but only 'x' are in stock?

But that could push them away to a competitor. It makes terrible business sense to do that. You want that persons order. How many other online retailers are there where everything is in stock until you’ve handed over your money?

 

[ChocAndGray]

Unfortunately there can be similar issues from other retailers.

One of the biggest online retailers in the world will sometimes take your order clearly showing stock, and the cut-off for delivery the next day and then nothing. The order remains static.

I had that happen to me when ordering a dark hero motherboard on release.

The other famous computer competitor has taken an order for an item showing in stock, and then later that evening around 8pm receive an email to say that item is now on backorder.

That particular incident was really frustrating as I needed it next day, and by the time I received the email it was too late to order elsewhere for next day delivery.

I find in general customer service just isn't where it was just a few years ago with all retailers. Yes the pandemic has likely caused that in some regards.

Ultimately though I try and judge the service by how problems are dealt with as opposed to whether problems occur.

 

[Microdot63]

Yes, the last order for fans I made (in stock) I paid for Sunday DPD delivery and the same happened to me, no notifications, nothing. In the end I cancelled the order as it was time sensitive. Today I ordered some Lian Li cables (again in stock) Royal Mail next day delivery, no notifications again.
I've bought from them for a long time as they were always the most reliable. I even gave a positive review a few weeks ago for an order I placed then. But I don't know why it's all gone to pot lately. It's very annoying when you're trying to get a system done and you don't know where the order is.

 

[ket]

Maybe it's just me but I always check if what I want is available in the quantity I want. If the site allows you to place the order but doesn't have the quantity you want in stock and fails to inform you of this before completing the purchase, then you have the right to be annoyed you were not notified in situations like that I always cancel the order and buy elsewhere, nobody likes undue delay. The seller is responsible for telling the buyer ALL the information the buyer needs to know, such as stock levels, the buyer is responsible for checking things like next day delivery cut-off times and stock levels for what they want, likewise for when an order is being placed around busy times you have to expect it might take a day or two longer regardless of the delivery you pay for.

It's not difficult to simply gray out or remove next-day delivery options during checkout if the cutoff limit has already passed though I've run websites before things like that aren't hard to implement.

 

[labbby]

should have ended that reply with a mic drop