nfs@notecnirp.Princeton.EDU (Norbert Schlenker) (04/15/89)
Well, I just got off the phone with Prentice-Hall's customer service people. They are amazing. The order department is just as amazing. I am now tempted to believe that the whole company is amazing. On March 19, I ordered Minix 1.3 (the whole package, not the upgrade) along with the reference manual. I was assured that it was in stock. I was told that it would be shipped within three days. Assuming that this was true, I asked them to send it by UPS, and anticipated that it would arrive within a week. (UPS has yet to take more than a few days from anywhere in the country, and P-H told me they were shipping out of a warehouse in New York.) I had them bill it to my Visa card. Last week, not having received anything, I phoned P-H's order desk. They shunted me to customer service. Customer service shunted me to individual customer service. At last, I was told that the order department had been out of its mind on March 19 and that I would have to wait 3 to 3 1/2 weeks. I complained, but they said that was just the way it was. I asked how it could take so long to process an order, and was told that was just the way it was. What can you do? I shrugged and waited some more. Today is Friday. The UPS truck has already been past my place. The earliest Minix would arrive now is Monday. Since that would be 4 weeks from the date of my order, I called customer service again. No telephone shunting this time - I had the number. Customer service told me that my order had been entered TODAY. Huh? They told me the paperwork would make it to their warehouse on Monday and that Minix would be shipped Tuesday. They told me I'd have it by the end of next week. They had no explanation for the fact that my order had apparently been lost for four weeks. Perhaps it had been held up in credit, they said. Not likely with a Visa card, I replied. Perhaps it had been held up in billing. Not likely with Visa. They had no explanation for the fact that they told me last week that I would have it this week. They made no apologies for the fact that I could have gotten it through Barnes and Noble two weeks ago (even via special order) and they would have missed out on the difference between wholesale and retail. The supervisor told me she would look into it further. Customer service even phoned me back after looking into it further. They told me again that they had no idea why my order was entered only today. They did offer to send me a package via FedEx on Monday - I was sure to have that by Wednesday. I agreed. When I asked whether the other order could be cancelled, I was told NO. My order was apparently one of thousands, and they couldn't cancel just one. What about the paperwork that had to go to the warehouse and wouldn't be there before Monday? It had gone already. How was my express order going to make it to the warehouse by Monday? It just would. Couldn't a cancellation make it to the warehouse by the same route? NO! So here is what we agreed to. P-H will FedEx Minix 1.3 to me sometime Monday. They will bill me for it godnosewhen, on an invoice. The other copy, now in the works, will apparently wend its way to me via some channel. My Visa account has already been charged. When the slow copy arrives, I'm supposed to refuse delivery. When that gets back to the warehouse, my Visa account will be credited. I suspect that will be sometime around July, given P-H's record. I haven't quite decided what to do about this mess yet, but let me give you some advice. If possible, buy Minix at a bookstore. As a second resort, order it through a bookstore on a special order - surely P-H can't afford to alienate a book store in the way they have alienated me. As a third resort, order from their direct department, but don't do it on a Visa card. Let them send you a bill, and then pay them after an appropriate interval (two months seems reasonable to me at this point). In closing, let me say that everyone at Prentice-Hall was polite and friendly. They just don't seem to know their ass from their elbow. They have an order system that loses orders, and they don't know why. They have an order system, apparently computerized, that requires physical transmittal of documents to a warehouse and hence ensures an extra two day's delay in processing any order. They have no audit trails. No one is responsible for anything that goes on. How do they manage to sell books? How do they manage to get paid for them? Why is this company still in business? Norbert
APEARSON%WAYNEST1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Patrick Haggood) (04/18/89)
> if possible, buy Minix from a Bookstore....
Y'know, I tried that, as I am one who believes that waiting 4-6 weeks
for delivery is asnine (the pony express doesn't still use ponies, does
it?). However, after being shunted around various departments as was
Norbert (at least we all know phone transfer works) they told me that they
could send it to my campus bookstore (Barnes and Noble) but they had to
charge B&N full price, meaning I would have paid the 80 buck plus B&N's
standard markup (putting it somewhere between $110 and $130).
Tell me again how we live in a modern world.....
Oh, and in reply to your rhetorical question about how they sell books,
I've seen worse, but I've had to look damn hard.usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (04/23/89)
in article <13312@louie.udel.EDU>, APEARSON%WAYNEST1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Patrick Haggood) says: > >> if possible, buy Minix from a Bookstore.... > > Y'know, I tried that, as I am one who believes that waiting 4-6 weeks > for delivery is asnine (the pony express doesn't still use ponies, does > it?). I bought my copy of MINIX at Computer Literacy Bookstore in person off the shelf in San Jose. They only had software with manual or manual only. No software only. Well, now you're saying "Great, but I'm not in SillyCon Valley". Good News they do mail order. According to their bookmark: MAIL AND PHONE ORDERS WELCOME Next day shipment guaranteed on all in-stock books. Call (408)435-1118 Disclaimer: I am in no way associatted with CL Bookstore. I found them one time when I was out there for a week and was greatly impressed. John H. Lawitzke UUCP: ...rutgers!mailrus!frith!jhl Dale Computer Corp., R&D ...decvax!purdue!mailrus!frith!jhl 2367 Science Parkway ...uunet!frith!jhl Okemos, MI, 48864 ...uunet!frith!ipecac!jhl
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (04/26/89)
In article <2679@cps3xx.UUCP> usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) writes: >I bought my copy of MINIX at Computer Literacy Bookstore in person off >the shelf in San Jose. They only had software with manual or manual >only. No software only. Well, now you're saying "Great, but I'm >not in SillyCon Valley". Good News they do mail order. According >to their bookmark: > >MAIL AND PHONE >ORDERS WELCOME > >Next day shipment guaranteed on >all in-stock books. >Call (408)435-1118 When MINIX first came out, the people at Computer Literacy tried to get copies of the software to sell. P-H didn't want to do this originally, since the $79.95 price didn't include any margin for the store, but Computer Literacy called P-H three times a day for a week, and P-H eventually got the message. The result was the $110 (now $116) version that includes the software and manual packaged together. This is intended to be sold by stores. The $79.95 yellow box with software only is supposed to be mail order from P-H only. I happened to be in California in Jan 1987, and Computer Literacy asked me if I could give a little talk on MINIX. I said ok. Little did I know they were going to rent a nontrivial portion of the Santa Clara Convention Center and do enough publicity to attract a standing room only crowd of 500+ people. This was not entirely out of the goodness of their heart since they have a bookstore in the building, which had hundreds of copies of the MINIX book at 7 p.m. and 0 copies at 11 p.m. Still, my impression is that those guys are clearly on the ball. They have several stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, with an enormous selection of stuff (ANSI standards, computer science PhD theses, as well as a vast number of books and I guess some software). I was impressed with the whole operation, and they may well be a better source than P-H for those items that they carry. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)