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Series 3 TiVos not shipping?

I ordered a Series 3 TiVo off tivo.com Tuesday morning fully expecting to get it by Friday. It said it would ship in a day or two, and I had overnight shipping. Thursday night, I got an email saying there was "excessive demand" and it would definitely ship Friday (and they'd waive the shipping charges) and I should expect an email. Friday came and went, and there's no email.

Turns out, lots of other people have had the same experience. Gear Live has a good wrap-up of TiVoCommunity threads and an HDbeat editor had the same experience I did. It's looking like no one that ordered online has gotten their new TiVo yet.

It's great to see TiVo have such demand for a high-end product, but I'm shocked at how poorly it is being handled. Everything in business is about managing customer expectations. From the outset, the expectation was set at 1-2 day for shipment and even as the orders poured in, you'd think a dynamic website could be programmed to shift that as the day wore on. Apple is a company that deals with high demand online sales and they're fantastic about estimating when something will be in your hands.

I would have skipped the TiVo.com route and bought one at my local BestBuy, but when I called them last weekend, they said they were only getting a couple units 1-2 weeks later. I'm really surprised to hear the TiVo.com online orders can't be canceled, as that seems borderline illegal for an unshipped unit.

I'm hopeful TiVo turns this all around next week. With all the people calling customer service, they must have gotten the message that they have thousands of disgruntled superfans on their hands, so I'd like to see an honest, accurate email Monday letting me know when I could really expect a unit. I'm glad I didn't schedule any cablecard installers yet, but I did buy a TiVo wireless g adapter from Amazon that is sitting here unused.

by Matt Haughey September 16, 2006 in News

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