I’d finally decided to re-join the cable TV-watching society with Time Warner Cable, after having been without cable (or any other form of TV broadcast) for over four years. The install was requested, scheduled, and confirmed online, and I was the proud possessor of a confirmed installation 1-4 p.m. yesterday. Yeah, right.

I’d finally gotten through all the red tape in the purchasing department, and my request for a Dell (really Motion Computing, but Dell re-sells to us at a better price than the manufacturer will) Tablet PC. The request hit the Dell site July 28, but I didn’t sweat it; it would get here when it got here, and Dell is usually quick. Not this time, boyo… the estimated delivery date is now advancing to the current date each morning.

Why are businesses so okay now with the idea of failing to serve the customer?

Time Warner could have contacted me (email or phone) to say that the installation workload was too high that day, or that someone called in sick, or just plain “sorry, we can’t make it today”. Instead three phone calls, a cumulative hour and a quarter on hold, and quite a bit of frustration latter, I hear the installers knock off at 7 p.m. (and this being 7:30), so could I reschedule for tomorrow? They didn’t know, by the time my “confirmed time window” expired, what the workload looked like?!?

Dell could have done some contacting of their own, but at least the progression on the computer “assembly” is documented on their website. They do provide a link there for “why is my order taking so long?” which points to a blog post from nearly a month ago saying that there are production delays on certain models of laptop – none of which are the model of tablet I was ordering. C’mon guys… if you’re going to make up a reason for the delay, at least make it context sensitive.

There’s nothing wrong with telling your customers the truth! I would prefer to hear “sorry, can’t make it” than be left in service limbo. Maybe I can find some professionals who are willing to be.