My Xotic Experience - MSI

Sorry if this is the wrong forum to be posting this in however I haven't seen a Reseller Forum for MSI/Xotic around here. If it should be somewhere else let me know.

Anyway I'm going to be purchasing a MSI GT70 2OD-064US with a 1TB 7200 RPM drive, 16GB RAM and the CPU/GPU thermal paste replacement with UPS Express shipping to Alberta, Canada (Express negates the brokerage fees which are over $80).

August 20th - Opened up a rapport with Xotic at 4:08pm MST. Derek responded at 5:20pm. I replied at 5:29pm and he responded at 5:33pm. Simple questions but you can tell he was on the ball. :thumbsup:
August 21st - Same on this day, responded within 40 minutes or less on every inquiry. :thumbsup:
August 22nd - The only blip so far. I asked him about price matching GenTech as GenTech's price for the same system was a bit better. I didn't hear back from him that day.
August 23rd - Blip continues: I sent him 2 more emails (morning and afternoon) asking if he got my Price Match question and a few other little things and didn't hear back. I phoned his extension and he picked up. He said he was waiting on approval on part of the Price Match but if he didn't have it by the end of the day he would probably get it during the weekend and let me know. :thumbsup:
August 24th - I sent him 2 emails asking about progress and didn't get any response to either.
August 25th - Derek got back to me that his management hadn't gotten back to him like he had hoped and would check into it in the morning.
August 26th - He did get back to me in the afternoon. I had done some looking around on the weekend and checking the forums and had a few more questions for him. All his responses were within an hour.:thumbsup:
August 27-29 - Decided to make some modifications to the order to save a couple hundred and asked him to price match again. He was good about it and had an approval in 3 hours. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

So, aside from the blip in communication on Friday and the weekend he has been really on the ball. I'll be placing an order sometime this weekend and I'll update as the order progresses. So far I'd give Derek a 4.7 out of 5.0 (mostly for the lack of communication on Friday. But he recovered a bit with the 3 hour price match!)

August 31 - Placed the order in the evening. :thumbsup:
September 2 - Received automated message the order was set to Phase 1 (Order Confirmation) :thumbsup:
September 3 - No communication.
September 4 - Received an email from Deb in Verifications about CC information not coming through on the order and gave directions on how to re-submit them. Further emails were exchanged regarding my alternate shipping address and she said she was calling banks that afternoon. :thumbsup:
September 5 - Received an email from Deb asking me to call her. After verbally confirming the order with her she said it was sent for final payment verification and processing.
September 6 - Got an email from Derek in regards to a shipping price mis-communication. After sorting that out got an email from Deb in the afternoon that my order was approved for Production (Phase 2).

Overall a lot messier/time consuming than I had hoped. I was thinking 'submit over the weekend, order processed on 3rd, 4th at the latest, and production by the 5th at the latest.' but there was a lot more back and forth than I thought there would be. We'll see how Phase 2 goes.

September 10 - OH YEAH! I don't know what happened to Phase 3 (or what it is for that matter) but I just got an email saying my order is in Phase 4 (Order Shipped)!! :thumbsup: And because I selected the Expidited Shipping to save on brokerage fees I should be seeing this in the next day or 2! Can't wait.
September 10 - Expected delivery - tomorrow. Yeah! If there's anything special about the unit (XoticPC-wise) when I get it I'll post it here. If you're interested look for system thoughts in the GT70-2OD Lounge next week (probably).

 

Haha. A 0.3 dock on points for not responding on the weekend?

Found out later that the lady approving the price match was pretty tied up that weekend with helping to throw a kickball tournament (we need time off from work here and there) and so upon me following up with it and getting that answer I was able to take back over and provide information fast again.

 

The .3 deduction was mostly due to your raising my expectations so high! =) You were replying super quick and said you’d be working over the weekend and then I didn’t get responses on Thursday (22nd) through Saturday (24th) (outside of our phone call). If it had taken you 24 hours to respond to messages and never mentioned the weekend I wouldn’t have expected as much!

But all in all it’s been a great experience so far; not many companies respond as quickly and hardly any will do anything over the weekend (my utilities company comes to mind; they take a week to respond!).

 

Haha, for sure. I have some horror stories about most places I've dealt with as well. Part of doing the quick responses is having been in your shoes myself since I buy stuff online as well. I know I appreciate quick feedback so I try to be as fast as I can.

 

Alright, order was placed last night. Let the anxious waiting begin!

 

You still get nailed with a bond fee though, which is about 10-15$, and then 15% on customs. Kind of sucks, but I don't think there's any reseller which does customizations on this side of the border.

 

I'll let you know what additional fees I incur.