The forgotten Sept/Oct orders

[ttweed]

Nissan is in a damned-if-the-do/damned-if-they-don't scenario, made dramatically worse by the natural disaster. Without that, folks bumped back a month would likely be taken care of within the next month. Now, who knows.

Yes, the whole situation is unfortunate in so many ways, with the trials and tribulations of the Japanese people being foremost by a longshot. But you are right--if production had continued to ramp up and deliveries had proceeded at an ever-increasing rate as they were prior to the earthquake, I think everyone who ordered before early Feb. would have had their cars delivered by May, and the few exceptions in delivery order would not have been as noticeable or as critical. At this point, there is a certain amount of chaos that we are all going to have to try to understand and deal with. Personally, I am ready to cut them some slack now.

TT

 

[DaveEV]

Thanks for the update, Tom. I hope that Nissan follows through on what they have told you as it will restore a lot of sanity to the process.

That said - I still have my doubts as this issue has been apparent for quite some time now well before March 10th... The length of time they are taking to resolve this is causing issues for all customers (whether their estimates are "late" or "early").

 

[edatoakrun]

To be honest - Sat may be optimistic if your car is on Luna Spirit. It might be until Monday before those cars are scanned into the system... It seems to take 2-4 days after a ship docks before people's dashboards start changing to "week of" and the VIN becomes available...

Ya, understood. I was actually just hoping to have some feedback from CS by Sat. as promised. It may be a stretch to hope for an actual VIN by then, given the logistics involved in unloading and processing deliveries from two ships.

As it turns out, I didn't have to wait that long, though. Apparently, my concerns and issues were escalated finally, and I got a personal call from Nissan Corporate this morning. I am calm and relaxed over this whole process now, finally. I have been assured that they are working as quickly as possible to resolve all my questions, and get the proper communication out to all of us who are waiting on their cars. on individual customers and endeavoring to get correct status updates out to each one ASAP...
(But sooner would be better, Nissan, if you are listening, which I know now you are!)
TT

So, did you get any indication whether any or most of the delayed to "month of April then May", AKA "forgotten September/October orders" were shipped?

I understand the difficulties LEAF production will now have, due to the disaster. I do not understand why more information about long-delayed orders has not been forthcoming.

No one from Nissan ever called me back, as I was promised Tuesday morning, when I was told "month of May" means "not on the ship", contrary to what others have reported from their CS inquiries.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

No one from Nissan ever called me back, as I was promised Tuesday morning, when I was told "month of May" means "not on the ship", contrary to what others have reported from their CS inquiries.

I was told by CS that "Month of May" means the car has not been built yet, and won't be until the factory restarts, and no idea when after that.

I don't put an ounce of weight in it, though. It's all made-up BS.

 

[Anithera]

To be honest - Sat may be optimistic if your car is on Luna Spirit. It might be until Monday before those cars are scanned into the system... It seems to take 2-4 days after a ship docks before people's dashboards start changing to "week of" and the VIN becomes available...

Ya, understood. I was actually just hoping to have some feedback from CS by Sat. as promised. It may be a stretch to hope for an actual VIN by then, given the logistics involved in unloading and processing deliveries from two ships.

As it turns out, I didn't have to wait that long, though. Apparently, my concerns and issues were escalated finally, and I got a personal call from Nissan Corporate this morning. I am calm and relaxed over this whole process now, finally. I have been assured that they are working as quickly as possible to resolve all my questions, and get the proper communication out to all of us who are waiting on their cars. I really had no idea of the impact on production and delivery the disaster in Japan has had, and it is more extensive than I thought, reaching even into their information systems. Nissan USA is still not able to have the kind of visibility on factory production and scheduling that they are accustomed to, and are even doing some things "manually" now that have formerly been automated. It turns out that I should have received an email last Sat. or Mon. with a status update, but I didn't, so that is indicative of how tenuous the whole process has become until systems are restored fully. I learned that the plant in Oppama was not seriously damaged, but is still suffering from electrical supply problems that could compromise safety of workers. They are scrambling to rebuild the supply chain and arranging with redundant suppliers of parts when their normal sources cannot deliver. It is an immense and unexpected interruption to business as usual, and their production scheduling has a BIG hole blown in it. There WILL be delays, and they understand some customers may be frustrated to the point of canceling their orders, and they don't want that to happen. They are still assessing the impact on individual customers and endeavoring to get correct status updates out to each one ASAP. Some people may have received incorrect information that will have to be updated, and some like me may have not received any information at all yet. What made my day, though, was that they insisted that their goal was to continue to deliver cars in the sequence they were ordered (not reserved). Most of the "outlying" delivery notices that we have seen here for orders in Jan. & Feb. were the result of a communication error by a vendor processing the wrong batch of information, I was told, and they are in the process of rectifying this. As long as I have a fair shot at getting the CA rebate, I am happy. They can deliver my car whenever.

(But sooner would be better, Nissan, if you are listening, which I know now you are!)
TT

TL;DR version:
You badgered a CS Rep to get a bunch of info out of him that he did not have access to and even told you this multiple times, and then finally showed your happy face when the escalation was done and you got an email from corporate? Next time instead of being a jerk to someone who can only give you the info he is given why don't you just go straight to the source you want in the first place (as I believe someone earlier posted you should do).

I understand being angry that the CS Rep doesn't have the info you want, but how is that his fault? He can only provide you with what he's provided with. It's not his fault he doesn't have more information.

 

[ttweed]

So, did you get any indication whether any or most of the delayed to "month of April then May", AKA "forgotten September/October orders" were shipped?

I understand the difficulties LEAF production will now have, due to the disaster. I do not understand why more information about long-delayed orders has not been forthcoming.

No one from Nissan ever called me back, as I was promised Tuesday morning, when I was told "month of May" means "not on the ship", contrary to what others have reported from their CS inquiries.

No, I did not receive any specific insight about what vehicles made it out before the disaster--we (the May delivery folks) were right on the cusp of production on Mar. 10. I was told that I was originally a "last week of April" delivery that was bumped to the first week of May, thus the date change on my DB without any emailed update (which supposedly only happens if your order was delayed for more than 2 weeks). The window is supposedly about 6-7 weeks from the time your car rolls off the line to customer delivery, so that means my car was close to being on the line when it shut down. They were having to search the shipping manifests manually to try to determine where my car was, so they still couldn't give me a firm date, or even confirm that it was built. All the people with RAQ acceptance dates of around Oct. 1 like me are probably in the same situation, with minor variances for the "production scheduling adjustments" we have all heard about. It might be a crapshoot whether your car is on the boat, on the dock in Japan still, or not even assembled as yet, if you ordered in Oct. They are scrambling hard to sort it out and inform people, and also to restore factory production to previous levels ASAP and keep the spigot running.

I think your inquiry and mine, and everyone else who had become concerned, has helped to escalate these issues to people who can finally do something about them, where they might have stayed hidden in a flood of orders being fulfilled in the next two months otherwise. In some ways, this hiccup in production may give them the opportunity to get it right, now. That is my hope.

TT

 

[trentr]

Looks like ttweed got a hold of the big enchilada, good job! I hope Nissan fixes this issue for all who were affected. In my case, I was told by Nissan today that they were able to find a demo car exactly like my order with an expedited delivery date of 4/15! Forgotten no more, I hope!

 

[jcesare]

I understand the difficulties LEAF production will now have, due to the disaster. I do not understand why more information about long-delayed orders has not been forthcoming.

It never ceases to amaze me how some corporations have perfected their own "turtle mode." They are uncomfortable with transparency and hide in their shell and only offer information when hard pressed to do so. Obviously there was a major screw-up with an outsourcer processing data incorrectly. Most people are reasonable and would have accepted the explanation if it had been forthcoming in a timely manner. Instead, I think they thought that they could stall and rectify the situation when production ramped up and no one would be the wiser. Then March 10 hit and we have a classic example of Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives (Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment).

 

[ttweed]

Next time instead of being a jerk to someone who can only give you the info he is given why don't you just go straight to the source you want in the first place (as I believe someone earlier posted you should do).

Can you please enlighten us all as to how we can "just go straight to the source you want in the first place?" You need to do some more reading on this thread and others. There is no readily available "source" other than CS, and I was never a "jerk" to anyone, though I am tempted mightily to be one with you right now for your thoughtless, uninformed, and inaccurate attack on my character. Research all my posts in the last month and then we'll joust about this. You have the facts all wrong and I refuse to respond to your taunts. Try another tack when you are more educated on the reality of what has actually happened in my case, and man up and use your real name when you are flaming someone.

TT

 

[DaveEV]

TL;DR version

Perhaps you should have read ttweed's whole story before accusing him of being out of line... pot meet kettle ?

 

[Anithera]

Can you please enlighten us all as to how we can "just go straight to the source you want in the first place?"

Like this?

Nice work ttweed! You're getting somewhere. It's hard work.
I've found that when you push the CS people *too* hard, they snap and just start making shic up.

Another approach is to call, directly, Brian Carolin, Nissan's Senior Vice President of Sales.

"We're trying to respond as much as we can on an individual basis where people are raising their hand and expressing angst," he said. "We've got a very well structured call center, and even some of my team in the office will step in when someone is really 'angsty' and that helps a lot."

http://t.co/KNdlL19

Take him up on his kind offer to work with someone in his office.
I'm not at all kidding. Start with 800-647-7261, explain who you are trying to contact and be politely determined. I bet you can reach his office in less time that you've spent with your CS rep.

Also:

and I was never a "jerk" to anyone

Alright maybe I was off base with this accusation I just assumed the way you talk about reps on this forum that you'd naturally be cussing them out over the phone. Anyways..with all due respect..my point still stands that the guy was giving you the only info he had. This was more for any OTHER irate people that could badger reps about info they think they are mysteriously hiding from the customers.

 

[palmermd]

On Feb 22nd after noticeing that lots of later orders were getting delivery dates and a big group of us who ordered on Sept 2nd and 3rd were getting forgotten, I contacted customer support. I had to force the representative to escalate my complaint that the early september orders were being forgotten. He finally caved and said he would escalate my complaint and have somebody look into it and make sure that we were not forgotten. He said I would be contacted once they reviewed my question. Of course I never heard back from anybody, but I did get added into the group of deliveries (got a delivery date estimate of March 30 from "Month of April") on March 13th. I also noted seeing almost all the other September 2/3 orders get listed with dates about the same time. So I do believe that they (Nissan) were getting blocks of orders mixed up and out of order. I think they are working to get them back in order, and this might upset some people who jumped ahead and are now going to get bumped back to the rightful place in line. Really the only orders that need to be kept aligned correctly are the California orders because it make a $5000 difference in the purchase price if your order gets "lost". So far it looks like the only delieries that are somewhat out of order are to other states, which don't effect the California rebate. It looks to me like they are in the process of straightning out the delivery order base on the responses in the delivery threads. I think Nissan is doing a fairly good job of this, and we are mostly upset because some mistakes were made and they have not been open about the mistakes and the corrective actions they have taken to fix them. It always goes back to communication. Honest and open communication always works best.

 

[Anithera]

I think Nissan is doing a fairly good job of this, and we are mostly upset because some mistakes were made and they have not been open about the mistakes and the corrective actions they have taken to fix them. It always goes back to communication. Honest and open communication always works best.

Yeah, I agree. Nissan should have been more open about the whole situation so as to alleviate any confusion..and clearly there is a lot of confusion. Hopefully they will learn from this mistake. Either way they seem to be getting their stuff straightened out, and in the end that's what matters.

 

[davewill]

In their shoes, I would contact all of the prospective owners involved and explain the issue in detail...sooner rather than later. Trying to quietly fix it in the background is only going to keep the speculation and bad feelings alive. We all understand mistakes, especially to the extent they were made worse by the quake/tsunami/nuke disasters, and I doubt many people will respond poorly to a truthful admission of problems.

 

[ttweed]

Alright maybe I was off base with this accusation I just assumed the way you talk about reps on this forum that you'd naturally be cussing them out over the phone. Anyways..with all due respect..my point still stands that the guy was giving you the only info he had. This was more for any OTHER irate people that could badger reps about info they think they are mysteriously hiding from the customers.

Yes, you were WAY off base, and if you had bothered to read my history before throwing out accusations, you would have known that. I am a firm believer in civility and rational dialogue, and I never abused any CS rep at any time in my many contacts with them. I managed a call center for 20 years providing just the kind of service they are, and I filled in for my people and manned the phones myself at times to give them breaks. I know exactly what it's like to be in their shoes and totally empathize with their situation. If you read all my posts, you would see that I responded to the hint to contact Nissan Corporate directly and said I would do it on Monday if I hadn't heard anything by then. In the meantime, they contacted me, and it was much appreciated. I have never been "irate" in this whole situation--confused, maybe, possibly disturbed a bit, but lumping me in with the "OTHER irate people" (whoever they are?) is unjustified. I may have "spiced up" some of my posts for humorous effect. The fact is, I have never, ever, actually drank a Red Bull or a Tiger Blood latte. OK, that was a fiction--sorry if you interpreted it to mean I got all "Charlie Sheen" on someone.

It is too easy to let your fingers get ahead of your brain in a forum like this, and my advice is you should back away from the keyboard until you get your facts straight and quit digging this hole for yourself before you're in over your head. That's just a polite suggestion. Carry on as you see fit.

TT

 

[Deleted member 770]

What made my day, though, was that they insisted that their goal was to continue to deliver cars in the sequence they were ordered (not reserved).

Tom, thanks so much for sharing this information...I'm sure it makes many feel a bit better about the situation.

One question: Did you happen to get clarification as to whether the delivery sequencing was based on "RAQ" date or actual order date? In my case (and possibly others), it makes a few weeks' difference...

Still hoping for a change from April->May->Pending soon...

 

[AndyH]

As it turns out, I didn't have to wait that long, though. Apparently, my concerns and issues were escalated finally, and I got a personal call from Nissan Corporate this morning. I am calm and relaxed over this whole process now, finally.

Tom, THANK YOU for taking the time to work through the CS system, and thank you for bringing the info to the group! Wonderful work!

 

[Beachcliffs]

Perhaps one of the first Andromeda Spirit updates ...
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3101

 

[gascant]

In their shoes, I would contact all of the prospective owners involved and explain the issue in detail...sooner rather than later. Trying to quietly fix it in the background is only going to keep the speculation and bad feelings alive. We all understand mistakes, especially to the extent they were made worse by the quake/tsunami/nuke disasters, and I doubt many people will respond poorly to a truthful admission of problems.

Well said.

 

[Beachcliffs]

In their shoes, I would contact all of the prospective owners involved and explain the issue in detail...sooner rather than later. Trying to quietly fix it in the background is only going to keep the speculation and bad feelings alive. We all understand mistakes, especially to the extent they were made worse by the quake/tsunami/nuke disasters, and I doubt many people will respond poorly to a truthful admission of problems.

Well said.

Well said, but I am still waiting for them to do so. Just like the delivery queue, it is hard to figure out how Nissan decides to communicate with whom and when. Despite numerous, but polite, efforts on my part, I still seem unworthy of anything other than "canned" responses.