Appalling dreadful customer service

An order was placed for collection on Monday 06 May 2019 at 16:20 for 2 x HP EliteBook 830 notebooks, 2 x Targus classic notebook bags, HP LaserJet Pro MFP printer and 2 x Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019 units.

Payment for the order was made on Tuesday 07 May 2019 at 07:58 and the proof of payment forwarded at 08:17 the same day. An email was received at 08:44 from Frederic Jansen van Rensburg, the internal sales account manager, confirming proof of payment & informing that they are busy allocating stock to your order.

Since the stock was being allocated before 09:00 on Tuesday 07 May 2019, the understanding was that the stock will be ready at 14:00 for collection. I personally went to collect the stock at the AxizWorkgroup office and warehouse at 14:48. I was told that the stock is still not ready for collection and that they are experiencing system problems relating to their newly implemented Sage system. I waited till 17:00 and during the last 45 or so minutes of my wait the HP printer product manager, Mischelle Wright came to speak to me and apologised for the lengthy wait. I explained to Mischelle that the stock is quite urgent but they could not deliver on Wednesday 08 May 2019 & we subsequently agreed that the delivery will be done on Friday. I called Frederic Jansen van Rensburg on Thursday 09 May at 16:24 to find out whether there’s a possibility for me to collect the stock since I was in Centurion and would be driving past the AxizWorkgroup warehouse at about 16:45. Frederic told me that they are still experiencing system and stock allocation problems and we then agreed that I will collect the stock the following day at 09:00. Frederic called me on Friday 09 May at 09:17 to inform me that they still experienced system issues and that the order will have to be recreated because stock could not be released, something around stock recorded as virtual stock as appose to physical stock & needed to be rectified. Frederic asked me to look out for a new sales order email and confirmation of readiness of stock and that he will physically come to the collections sections if I’m having problems. I received an email on Fri 10 May 2019 at 13:35 from Frederic stating with 2 new pro-forma invoices attached and him stating in the email “Please find the attached orders, all the items has been allocated and picked.” I arrived at AxizWorkgroup at 13:40 just to find out that the stock is still not ready for collection. At 14:11 I tried to get hold of Frederic to tell him about stock still not being ready from my cell phone but was told his line is busy and his unavailable. I waited for another hour or more and during that wait one of the collections staff managed to get hold of Frederic on his landline to make him aware that there’s still Sage system issues preventing the completely release of in particular the HP LaserJet Pro MFP printer & Microsoft Office 2019 software. Frederic never made an attempt to come to collections to have this issue resolved. At 16:00 I completely lost it and demanded that I be taken to Frederic’s desk to find out why there are still hiccups in releasing stock and what precisely is being done about it? I did not get a satisfactory answer from Frederic besides that it’s a Sage system issue and that it requires intervention at a higher level. Juanita Van Staden eventually took this issue on and made exception release with sign off from both herself and someone else senior which I only have as G Vletter on the Proforma Invoice sign-off. Juanita told apologised and told me that she should have been made aware of this much earlier, something Frederic should have done. Suffice to say there was also a picking issue relating to the Targus bags where the picking slip clearly stated 2 units but only one was at the collection, clearly another stuff-up by the warehouse picking staff. Juanita promised to rectify everything on the back-end side of the Sage system and email the Tax Invoice on Monday 13 May 2019 – I still haven’t received the invoice for this order but Juanita was of great help nonetheless following by accumulated 6 hours or more wait for release of the stock.

I feel that this whole incident in lengthy delays and the fact that no mechanism exists to cater for system problems, is a huge indictment on Axizworkgroup and Sage. Quite honestly I have never witness such poor system implementation which results in the customers bearing the brunt of this, cause ours was not the only one...there were other customers who were just as frustrated and abandoned their 2 to 3 hour wait. Your system roll-out was poorly planned and even more poorly rolled out with no provision for fail-safe's or exceptions.

Thanks.