[BavarianFanatic]

Originally Posted by roundel335

Really? I'd say that assessment is total BS. You don't even know whether or not BMW is maintaining that tracking function or if it's being outsourced. The whole site may be outsourced and there could be some kind of breakdown in the communication link between manufacturing and the tracking function or a database issue, or any combination of a number of possibilities. When I ordered my 2013 F30 in late 2012, it was completely accurate right down to the "at your dealership" stage.

Software-wise, try using E-Sys to code the control modules in any F-chassis BMW. Definitely more sophisticated than an infotainment system or website by an exponential factor. I spent 44 years in IT, and worked with mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers from a hardware, software, and cybersecurity engineering standpoint both in-house and as a service provider. Judging a company's product quality by a perceived notion about their corporate website has no merit by any logical standard.

And really - is this something that needs this amount of bitching and moaning? Your CA should be the one to go to when you want to know what your ordered car's status is.

Spot on. It's a marketing tool and nothing else. If you solely judge the quality of a company by their marketing you're going to miss out on a lot of good companies. In fact, the best companies often do little or no marketing at all. Your CA will know when the car is due well in advance. Yours isn't the first car delivered. They've done this a few times before so they have a pretty good idea when to expect them...

[Beowulf65]

Folks: once your car has completed production and is on its way to Bremerhaven for shipping, you should be able to track it here if youi have the VIN and it is going out on a W&W ship:

https://www.2wglobal.com/webapps?fra...uickSearchPage

Just enter your VIN in the Cargo ID box.

Here is a sample track result:

[paul e]

So let me understand.After 40+ years in IT your stance is that on the corporate website (no matter who "maintains" it) no one should be alarmed or care that the app BMWUSA has there so that customers may track their $50k+ cars WITHOUT having to call anyone else, doesn't work, hasn't worked in a while and isn't going to work, and no one should give a rap.
And that the attention to detail or lack of same has no impact on their product. How about the impact on customer service, or lack of same?
There was an old saying it IT. "Let the techies do the tech but DON'T let them do customer service".
Let's hope your employers utilized that as you aren't getting the point AT ALL.

[bovino]

Originally Posted by paul e

So let me understand.After 40+ years in IT your stance is that on the corporate website (no matter who "maintains" it) no one should be alarmed or care that the app BMWUSA has there so that customers may track their $50k+ cars WITHOUT having to call anyone else, doesn't work, hasn't worked in a while and isn't going to work, and no one should give a rap.
And that the attention to detail or lack of same has no impact on their product. How about the impact on customer service, or lack of same?
There was an old saying it IT. "Let the techies do the tech but DON'T let them do customer service".
Let's hope your employers utilized that as you aren't getting the point AT ALL.

Exactly. Mainframe skills or not, the site is busted.

So it's not like bad website = bad car, but it does say something about the quality standards and customer focus. There is more to it than that: dealers seem to be hit or miss, a sure sign of watching dollars and not behaviors. Still bought BMW #2 so it's not THAT bad.

Outsourced or not, it's been broken for a long time. It isn't a priority for BMW or it would be fixed. That's reality. Don't offer something broken. Fix it in a timely fashion or get rid of it. It's not acceptable to offer it and leave it broken for months. I am unclear on how this point is controversial, but I suppose in a BMW forum there is bound to be someone blinded by brand loyalty.

[casualDIYer]

Originally Posted by paul e

Okay so my car is in the South Atlantic on the Glorious Ace due in Brunswick GA 12/16.

The Track "service" shows my car is "in production". It was built 11/3-4 and shipped earlier last week.

BMWUSA acknowledges the service is not showing the correct status. Unfortunately they also say there are no plans to fix it.

I'm just b/tching about the obvious head in the sand attitude at BMWUSA, which I find completely unprofessional. As a (retired) 35 year career IT guy I also find this indefensible. A simple feed update would fix it. If this took me more than an afternoon I'd resign my position.

Is this an example of anything other than laziness?

I'm sure as an IT guy you know nothing is simple especially at a big company.

[G30 B58]

Originally Posted by bimmercar

calling and talking to live person is usually the best way

Well of course, in the days of dial-up.

It's almost 2016 FFS!!!

[G30 B58]

Originally Posted by MomoM3

I don't even know why I'm entertaining a response since I really don't care to justify why I do things to a stranger...

800#, 2, Production number, 1, STATUS READOUT, 0, 30-second conversation to confirm status - done in less than a minute. What's the problem? If this bothers you so much that you need to post about your angst with my method you might be the one with OCD.

I'm not calling sales, I'm calling customer service - They are not selling anything so I'm not disrupting business. That is what they are there for - to inform.

You prefer me to just wait for my CA to call and tell me when to pick up my car around the holidays in the middle of Manhattan? If I call everyday or every week, I'm doing so to appease my own excitement. I'm not at all interested as to what you deem to be normal or otherwise.

If the website worked, you wouldn't even need the human interaction.

rolltidef32 You can't have it both ways.

[G30 B58]

Originally Posted by BavarianFanatic

Your CA will know when the car is due well in advance.

Maybe you have / had a competent CA? Lots of them are clueless as I'm sure you're aware of.

[dalto]

It probably falls inside BMW USA's marketing department somewhere. Unless something has changed in the last few years they use a large number of 3rd party contractors and systems and it ends up being more complicated for them than it needs to be.

Honestly, the people who run that area may not even know it doesn't work.

My feeling is BMW provides more customer insight into the ordering and delivery process than most of their competitors do so I am not going to complain overly. Also, it is not like it never works.

[dalto]

Originally Posted by F32 N55

Maybe you have / had a competent CA? Lots of them are clueless as I'm sure you're aware of.

That sucks. My CA sent me emails keeping me up to date with with status of my last car throughout the process.

[rolltidef32]

Originally Posted by F32 N55

If the website worked, you wouldn't even need the human interaction.

rolltidef32 You can't have it both ways.

Have it both ways how? Did I write a contradiction?

The website could be updated, but in the end, really doesn't matter. Mostly only enthusiasts take the time to actually order a car; most just buy what's either on a lot or can be found with locator.

Since this is the case, BMW knows that these type of customers are clearly already in the bag. Heck, they'd even charge us more if they could.

Don't think they care enough to fix the site, but calling the customer service line "daily" to ask the same question or other frivolous inquiries is why most businesses use a robo service to answer calls. Takes up time for customer service to deal with customers who have serious inquiry and it extends call wait time.

[G30 B58]

Originally Posted by dalto

That sucks. My CA sent me emails keeping me up to date with with status of my last car throughout the process.

They're not all like that, nor are some of them even knowledgeable. Even more-so with Euro Delivery.

[G30 B58]

Originally Posted by rolltidef32

Have it both ways how? Did I write a contradiction?

The website could be updated, but in the end, really doesn't matter. Mostly only enthusiasts take the time to actually order a car; most just buy what's either on a lot or can be found with locator.

Since this is the case, BMW knows that these type of customers are clearly already in the bag. Heck, they'd even charge us more if they could.

Don't think they care enough to fix the site, but calling the customer service line "daily" to ask the same question or other frivolous inquiries is why most businesses use a robo service to answer calls. Takes up time for customer service to deal with customers who have serious inquiry and it extends call wait time.

If the website worked, fewer people would call the 1-800 number. Therefore LESS DISRUPTION.

[bovino]

They need to fix it or get rid of it. An $85B company doesn't need customers making excuses for them.

[ronanz]

Originally Posted by F32 N55

If the website worked, fewer people would call the 1-800 number. Therefore LESS DISRUPTION.

This ^^ .

.

[eluded]

Yes let us hope the I drive programmers are not the same ones maintaining their website.

Originally Posted by roundel335

And really - is this something that needs this amount of bitching and moaning? Your CA should be the one to go to when you want to know what your ordered car's status is.

[BavarianFanatic]

Originally Posted by F32 N55

Maybe you have / had a competent CA? Lots of them are clueless as I'm sure you're aware of.

I have an awesome CA. Why waste your time with one who isn't?

Generally speaking, the only variables in the entire process are when the car will catch a ship and how long the car is at the VPC. Once it's on a boat you're down to one variable. The ships' routes and voyage durations are fairly consistent. The time in the VPC is pretty consistent give or take a day so it's not that tough to come up with a delivery window that's reasonably close. My own ED redelivery in 2013 was a challenge because my car hit the VPC 2 days before Christmas. All bets are off during a holiday.

[MomoM3]

Originally Posted by rolltidef32

Don't think they care enough to fix the site, but calling the customer service line "daily" to ask the same question or other frivolous inquiries is why most businesses use a robo service to answer calls. Takes up time for customer service to deal with customers who have serious inquiry and it extends call wait time.

Reasons I call and speak to someone at BMWNA daily:

1) bmwusa.com Track My BMW down
2) 800# still saying "Your vehicle is at the port awaiting a shipping vessel" as of Nov 17 (currently Dec 1)
3) Hitting 0 allows me to speak with a live human - after looking into my production a little further, my vehicle had been loaded onto a vessel back on Nov 22 and is already en route to Bayonne, NJ due to arrive on Jan 4
4) Had I chosen to not speak with a human I would have no idea when to expect my car

So yes, this is why I took it upon myself to dismiss the automated phone status and speak with a live person.

[Danman5666]

"We are currently processing your order and will inform you once your BMW enters production."

This is after we picked up our built X5 last Monday (11/23). Yeah, whoever runs the tracking tool needs some help!

[x986]

Originally Posted by Beowulf65

Folks: once your car has completed production and is on its way to Bremerhaven for shipping, you should be able to track it here if youi have the VIN and it is going out on a W&W ship:

https://www.2wglobal.com/webapps?fra...uickSearchPage

Just enter your VIN in the Cargo ID box.

Here is a sample track result:

Beowulf,
Here is another 'danke' for your informational post from those of us who started looking after the last time it appeared.

[GeorgeR]

South Carolina Plant - 80% of cars produced are customized for individual customers. (I have read as high as 85% quoted)

I am not sure what the custom order percent’s are for manufacturing plants outside the USA but a Forbes article in 2010 stated BMW’s goal was for 40% by 2015.

From a cost point, phone calls with automated voice response (AVR) are much more efficient. Online web automation is even more efficient.

If accurate status tracking is available and current, significant cost savings can be made; fewer agents are required to process calls, fewer telephone lines are needed to process calls.

Customers that are able to get current, accurate information via the media they prefer increases customer satisfaction. While a small percent prefer talking to a live person, the majority prefer getting updates via a simple web tool while the next most popular method prefer automated voice response.

The ROI is clear and easily proven but many companies, including BMW, choose not to make the needed investment in resources, hardware, software and time to develop, maintain and deliver the services.

Shortsighted for sure.

[st3v]

Who cares. Stop logging into the website 1000 times a day to check your status and go outside and enjoy the scenery.