Come back Dabs, all is forgiven

[Simcfc73]

Ever since BT swallowed up Dabs I'm beggining to get more and more annoyed with them. I used to really like their website, especially when you could drill down searchs to brands or drive or cpu variety but now the website is awful... I've had to cancel a few orders because the deliveries are taking longer and longer, if I ask for next day then I... well.. expect it next day.

 

Misco are brilliant for delivery but their website is a pain also.

 

Shame cos I have spent alot at Dabs and built up a really good relationship with my account manager.

[Silvor]

Our experiance with BT Business Direct has been good. Account Manager is top notch and we always get next day, no bother.

Website is awful, but AM agree's with that - and tells me to send anything I want to him, to which he generates me a quote...always cheaper than the website and save's time!

[Pete10141748]

Same as Mike posted above; I send what I want to my account manager via email, he usually gets me a quote within a day and it's almost always a bit cheaper than the site price too

[soveryapt]

I know the feeling .. I ordered a Wii with various accessories for the schools enrichment and inclusion programme just before Christmas, I've just had the final piece of the order this week, when all the stuff I ordered was showing as in stock when I placed the order. I had to chase them as they delivered 2 items then cancelled the rest of the order for some reason. The guy I spoke to said he's seen a few problems happen thus far.

 

Mind you, what do you expect from BT? I mean it takes them 3 weeks to get a computer to do a phone line test in a digital exchange, so when it comes to handling anything physical! lol ..

 

Though, I might try doing the account manager thing in future ..

[Haptic]

Ever since BT swallowed up Dabs I'm beggining to get more and more annoyed with them. I used to really like their website, especially when you could drill down searchs to brands or drive or cpu variety but now the website is awful... I've had to cancel a few orders because the deliveries are taking longer and longer, if I ask for next day then I... well.. expect it next day.

 

Misco are brilliant for delivery but their website is a pain also.

 

Shame cos I have spent alot at Dabs and built up a really good relationship with my account manager.

 

you could always give us a shout Simoncfc73 , we have looked after many a edugeek member with success and I'm sure we can not only save your school money buy give you the level of service you deserve fella, my email is below if you would like some more info,

 

[email protected]

Edited June 14, 2012 by Dos_Box

[glennda]

I Havn't purchased anything from DABs since some1 there rang us up one day and said high im your new account manager. I know it sounds petty but we got on really well with our old account manager and they have know lost many schools trade of the back of it ( we probly put about 10/15k pa past them), as they moved him to another part of the business without telling us before. But also for somethings there pricing isnt always great.

 

Toby

[SimpleSi]

I thought I'd order a mem stick (encrypted) from them on the bank holiday weekend.

 

Well basically, they must have shut down completely as it wasn't picked until Tues and I didn't get it till Wed and they charged me £7 quid for the privilege.

 

In the old days, I've ordered at 8pm and had the stuff at 8am the next day.

 

regards

 

Simon

[Haptic]

I thought I'd order a mem stick (encrypted) from them on the bank holiday weekend.

 

Well basically, they must have shut down completely as it wasn't picked until Tues and I didn't get it till Wed and they charged me £7 quid for the privilege.

 

In the old days, I've ordered at 8pm and had the stuff at 8am the next day.

 

regards

 

Simon

 

glad we got yours to you on time then Si

[Simcfc73]

I got my order, I thought it wasn't too bad as it was the following day.. they will reinburse the delivery so not too bad although....

 

.... I purchased a Acer repaired item, really good value so i thought I would take a punt on it, I had been bitten before with one of these but it was less than £200 for a really good spec machine.... switched it on and it beeped at me It was the graphics card so i removed it and got it working... haven't decided if I will keep it as I left it on over the weekend and I can't access it anymore.

[dgsmith]

I must admit i'm not a massive fan of the new site design but overall we're quite happy with BT Business. As above, send requested items to account manager (even if the items aren't even listed on the site) and providing it isn't EOL he'll get a price over to me. We already have a customer discount setup on the site so the prices we see are already cheaper and usually our AM can get even cheaper than that. Works well that we also do quite a bit of business with Misco too, competing against prices etc. Delivery never a problem and sometimes I can haggle it for free depending upon the value/size of the order.

 

Only issue we did have recently was that there was a massive cockup with some USB hub labelling; I ordered 2 powered USB hubs and they kept sending out 2 unpowered ones. Each time it would have cost them more to have them returned so we kept them. The third time they got it right and we got 4 free USB hubs out of it, but still we have no use for them and would have much preferred having the correct order first time! Still, other than that we're happy customers.

 

Bear in mind that you may be able to get your AM manager to give you discounts on personal dabs.com orders too (i've stopped buying printer inks from PC world or the like now when I can effectively get it for half the price).

[Great_Scott]

Thank you for the posts on this topic, they have been helpful to the team here following problems with recent orders.

Examples of the service we have received:

- 3 different account managers in as many months

- Promises to beat all other quotes but are actually more expensive.

- Guaranteed next day delivery but items do not arrive for days.

- Orders arrive incomplete

- Invoices received for items never ordered

- Pay for DHL delivery but items arrive by Royal Mail standard delivery.

- Quotes and confirmations arrive electronically but are addressed to someone completely different.

- Spelling and grammar mistakes on correspondence.

- Items addressed to complete strangers

- Invoices start with "to*first name*"

- Order confirmations include sentences such as: "... you chosen next day or other premeum delivery service option, them in most cases your order will arrive within 1-3 days..." (What does that mean?!!?)

 

Need I say more?

 

Cheers

[CyberNerd]

you missed the massive amount of over packaging that BT supply!

 

and we miss shane

[AngryTechnician]

I got a letter from them at work last week, completely unprompted, apologising for shoddy service (late delivery in particular) since they introduced a new computer system earlier this year. Personally I don't think that was behind all their problems, but they certainly think it explains some of them.

 

I have to admit that they are gradually moving towards my 'only use if can't find elsewhere' list, which is a pity as I've been using them for work and home for over 10 years. It certainly didn't help that our account manager completely sabotaged our relationship last year by undermining a competing supplier with the wholesaler.

 

All that said, I'd still rather use them than ebuyer, any day.

Edited July 16, 2011 by AngryTechnician

[RTFM]

The problem with Misco's delivery is it isnt free (or at least, we could never get our account manager to give us free delivery even when spending hundreds or thousands of £££).

 

At least with companies like @Millgate it is (and just as quick, if not quicker, than Misco), unsure about @CPLTD as not used them before but I dont think free delivery is too much to expect considering the amount you could be potentially spending. Doubling the cost of an item just because of delivery really peeves me off.

 

Anyway, slightly OT but saw the first post praising Misco delivery and thought i'd share my view! Haha.

[sonofsanta]

We got a sample desktop from BT last year when we were going through the tender process and they managed to send PS/2 peripherals for a machine with only USB ports, and a monitor that was VGA only when the mobo only supported DVI. Didn't look brilliant!

 

Misco's site annoys me the most out of any of the suppliers because I never have any clue what they've named a category or which one they've selected for the item I'm after. My personal favourite is eBuyer's just because you can select multiple options when narrowing down search results - so very much more useful than "looking at 5m cables" -> "cancel that filter" -> "now looking at 10m cables"

[Simcfc73]

I have used BT Business now for the past month after going off Dabs due to its 'problems' and they have been fine *touch wood*. Free delivery and it arrives on time. I do find the invoices a bit weird, they all say copy and my account managers phone number is mine. They do seem to have split BT and DABS now, I used to shop on the dabs site and when I went to checkout it took me to the BT site but now it doesn't.

 

Agree about Misco and the catagories...you would think they would be called monitors but they call them TFT screens, BT do the drill down on the catagories like eBuyer. Probrands catagories are awful too.. I only usually use them when I know what I want.

[WStore_Dan]

Just defending Misco (& WStore) here. We are both part of the same company now and I'm pretty sure that if you ask your account manager for free delivery, it can be applied. There may need to be some order history in place but I'm pretty srue this can be arranged. I give free delivery to all schools that I deal with. Also, on the website issue, Misco will be switching to a new site later this year which will have the same layout as WStore with drill down menus etc.

 

Please do not discard Misco or WStore as a supplier of choice based on a delivery charge that can, more often than not be removed and on a website that will be improved greatly before the year is out.

 

Regards

Edited July 23, 2011 by vikpaw
unauthorised link

[RTFM]

ask your account manager for free delivery, it can be applied. There may need to be some order history in place but I'm pretty srue this can be arranged. I give free delivery to all schools that I deal with.

 

We put in over 100 orders in approx an 18 month period, asked for free delivery frequently and kept being told no.

 

Sometimes we were paying more on delivery than we were on the item we wanted.......(sometimes you just need that 1 or 2 cables which can't wait until a bigger order comes along).

 

It's unfortunate as we were always quite pleased with the service from Misco but ultimately we've moved to another supplier who can match the price of items we want and gives free delivery so we make savings, the service is just as good as we had at Misco so......

 

Just one of those things

[jimmy_2k]

I loved Dabs. Our account manager once got me a HP laserjet 4000 series 3 days before Christmas when it was out of stock on their website. Seriously that is good service!

[newpersn]

Ive just ordered something from dabs for home. Free next day delivery ... shame its sunday