Dear TiVo (Please Start Shipping Those Series 3 TiVos)
There appears to be a number of people who are frustrated with how TiVo has been handling (or lack of handling) shipment of the Series 3 TiVo. One user was so frustrated that he decided to write a “letter” to TiVo letting them know what he thought.
….Today is Monday, and I have not received a TiVo. Your shipping label did not contain my full shipping address. Your e-mail receipt to me contained my full shipping address — my office’s suite number and all — however, upon a call to UPS, you did not put my office’s suite number on the box, and therefore UPS could not deliver. I finally had to sort everything out, and my TiVo will not be arriving until Wednesday, 20 September 2006. 8 days after I ordered it.
I really hope TiVo learns from this experience and in the future, they are more responsive when it comes to shipping the Series 3. I’m sure that once the Series 3 TiVos arrive, people will forget about it but, for now, it is putting a bad taste in people’s mouths even before they even get the units.
What TiVo should have done was simply adjust expectations to be in line with reality. Had they said “available to order” and then given a “shipping in 3-5 days”, people, especially those who ordered overnight shipping, wouldn’t be as angry. In time this won’t be a big deal, just the typical “launch time” frustrations, but their site clearly said that it would ship overnight and ship quickly.
I had one of the nightmares trying to get my series 3 from tivo.com. Two confirmation emails (one with the wrong address), tivo support telling me the box shipped on both thursday and friday, the finally hearing a third address tivo support while on the phone. I finally gave up and picked one up from a local best buy.
Shame, shame, shame. TIVO has not fixed the problem; and, this is not just related to Series 3. I was “suppose” to be a new customer… carefully planning my new Tivo Series 2 DT order so it would arrive near a specific date. TIVO lies about orders “arriv[ing] within six days from when the order was placed” and ” 24-48 hours to ship.” Now 140+ hrs since I placed the order, plus 3 hours of phone time on hold and w/ customer support, and what a waste of time! I made a big mistake by trying TIVO, and regret even trying to order their product (there are plenty of other alternatives out there).