Delays and conflicting stories about the cause, delivery date keeps getting pushed back

Ron_L

We've been waiting on a Tab 400 Boondock for a couple (almost 3) months now. The original (understandable) reason we were given for the delay in delivery was supply chain issues. We were told that everything was done, but they were waiting for the cushions. Communicating through our dealer, Tab offered to ship the camper without the cushions, but we decided to wait. Now, we're being told that they have the cushions, but the delay is extended because they're waiting for the Cool Cat A/C unit. We said "we're have another trip coming up, we'd really like to have our camper, can you just ship it without the A/C unit?" We were told "No." So I'm a bit annoyed with the lack of reasoning here. Why were they willing to ship the unit without cushions a month and a half ago - but are now unwilling to ship the unit without A/C? If the unit doesn't have A/C now, wouldn't that imply that it didn't have A/C back when they offered to ship it without the cushions? And if so, why won't they just ship it now without the A/C? We're running out of patience - supply chain delays in a pandemic are totally understandable, but I don't have much patience <removed inappropriate abbreviation not allowed on this family friendly forum> and/or incompetence. Get your story straight, NuCamp.

<edited for inappropriate abbreviation —Verna, T@B Admin

Yoshi_TAB

Hi,

I understand your frustration.  We just received our 320BD after waiting almost 7 months and did not make plans for this summer until we had it in hand.  I can understand shipping w/o cushions, but w/o the AC is not a reasonable request (I'm in manufacturing..actual building items for others).  The AC and the install is an integral part of the RV.   Where do they draw the line?   I've been promised supply chain parts for the plant I work in, only to be let down on delivery dates.  Often , it's one hand feeding the next to get parts (the AC suppliers are also waiting on parts, those parts suppliers are waiting on others and so on.)  I'm not defending NuCamp as I  have no idea of the details of their situation, but it's not fair to say it's BS or incompetence.    

Best wishs,

CJax

I'm also frustrated. I agree with @Yoshi_TAB insofar as I'm sympathetic to the fact that we are living through unprecedented times. I'm cool with late. I understand late. I also have made no plans without trailer in hand. I get that no state but Texas will allow chemical plants that make the foam, and that Texas doesn't know how to winterize said plants. 

What's starting to get to me is that I can't get anyone to give me a straight story, return my calls, or tell me exactly what state of assembly I'm in and a credible estimate of expected delivery. When I do connect to someone, it's always "any day now" or "two weeks"... like that old movie "The Money Pit".

Supply chain issues are part of life, more so now than ever.

But so is customer service. Or at least it should be.

George101

What probably happened was they had a/cs  a few months ago, but they used them for other builds.

And now they are waiting on another shipment.

Sharon_is_SAM

I empathize with all of your frustrations.  I wonder if you are having problems receiving communication from the dealer, are you communicating directly with nuCamp Customer Experience?  I know some owners have received photos of their build, so I wonder if this is available to those of you waiting patiently?  

CCTab_400

Sharon, 

Unfortunately the standard NuCamp customer experience response is “You have to talk to your dealer.” I like others have had trailers on order for 5-6 months. Supposedly it was build in early May. The real problem is NuCamp needs to come clean with what the delay involves. Ours went from not having cushions to cushions and an A/C part. The lastest is it needs cushions, A/C parts and the front window screen. Are they robbing parts off of my trailer to complete others? I like the trailers and the build quality. But I am beginning to wonder about their customer support. 

NorCalMike

I was just told by my dealer they are running about a month behind on 400 builds.  My build was supposed to be this week but that is gone.   Nucamp just refers delivery questions to dealers.  The dealers obviously have no clue.   I think they would be better served to just be honest and explain the supply chain hell they are living through.  I work in supply chain for a major tech company in NorCal so totally get this but honesty and transparency are pretty important for setting expectations.   

Dutch061

Not that I am waiting for a camper, but I have been waiting for a truck that was ordered March 2nd. I can't get ANY answer from the manufacturer and to add insult when I look at their order tracking website, it just depends on the day of the week as far as what is displayed as an anticipated delivery date. As @Yoshi_TAB said, there are far more things in motion that what ANY of the manufacturers have ever seen and I completely understand the fact they don't know because their suppliers are not able to provide accurate information.

However, in my case the truck ordered is a 2021 but the manufacturer is BUILDING and Shipping 2022's. If NuCamp was taking new orders and building and shipping while yours are waiting for parts, that is an entirely different situation.

However, camper, truck, appliances, etc. in the end they are not "life and death" and even though I am not happy about it, there are people who are struggling to buy groceries, pay rent, or have major health problems. 

To be blessed with nothing more than an inconvenience, we should all be VERY GRATEFUL for such trivial problems.....

Brad

Yoshi_TAB

Well said @Dutch061 , that's how we felt while waiting on ours for months.

lino

I recently went to the factory for the third time for repairs not warranty work 

I have never seen so many units lined up out back

And in the past they were all ready to ship

Im not justifying or explaining any specific delay but clearly they cant get parts fast enough 

dlb

Order a pick up, car, refrigerator, boat….. all are the same… delays due to whatever is the constraint of the moment.  Whatever you do, don’t build a house.

Yoshi_TAB

lino said:

I have never seen so many units lined up out back


In the world of "six sigma lean manufacturing" that is considered waste.   Parts inventory is also waste and not done in  manufacturing.  NuCamp wants to delivery those units as much as you want them.  No one (NuCamp/distributors/dealers) makes any money with sitting inventory.  It's also not reasonable for each customer to call the plant  and expect an update on the delivery of their unit. 

But, agree there should be a process to  communicate this info from the plant; to distributors; to dealers; to ; and consumer.  I' m guessing (but have no idea) that info. is difficult to get because they may not have a  process in the plant to "track" the production of each camper back to the customer service folks who answer the phone.  If not, it would require someone to run back to the production floor and find the status for each customer who calls.  Again, not a reasonable thing to to do.  Yes,  there certainly are inventory specialists or manufacturing engineers tracking this info., but it does not sound like it's  tied back to the customer service folks who answer the phones.

CCTab_400

I don’t think anyone is asking them to run around the plant floor looking for units. But when you have the VIN number it should be as simple as a few key strokes to find the information. 

Why not be honest about the issues you are having. They should have some idea of how long on average it takes to complete a unit. From the information I can find it seems like the build time has gone from 3-4 months to 8-10 months. 

CCTab_400

                          

Guess who arrived today? 23 weeks from order date in February. Hang in there she will eventually find her way home. 

manyman297

We ordered ours in the beginning of December and didn’t receive ours until the end of May. About 2 months from the original target date. Cushions were the main culprit and they weren’t lying. The manufacture date on the cushions was after the build date of the camper. We were ok with the delay but I became frustrated by the lack of communication by bothering the dealer and Nucamp. Eventually nucamp was able to send pics of my unit as proof it actually existed and soon thereafter it was delivered.

CJax

@CCTab_400 congrats! Thanks for sharing the hope.

@manyman297 , did you contact NuCamp directly for pics, or did you communicate through the dealer? 

manyman297

I went directly to nucamp initially and they said they couldn’t accommodate my request. It was only after raising a fuss about the delays that I was able to get them to take some pics of it in their yard. Dealer was kind of ineffective overall. 

mona

I’m sure NuCamp is just as frustrated at the delays. 

Jeannie

Ron_L

I fell off the comments page for a few days after my original (exasperated) post. I've seen some comments about the A/C unit being "integral part of the RV and they can't ship without it" - maybe that's true. If so, why then did they offer to ship it over a month and a half ago without cushions if they didn't have the A/C unit in the first place? Why didn't they say back then "there's no A/C unit and we can't ship without it"? Agreeing with what a couple of people have mentioned in their comments, I suspect they yanked the unit from ours to put it in another camper, then got behind the curve waiting for a replacement unit. But if that were the case, a little more clarity in the responses to our dealer would have been helpful and not at all unreasonable to ask for. Happily, we were notified yesterday that our Tab 400 has finally arrived - with the cushions and the A/C unit. We were very happy with our 2018 Tab 320 and are looking forward to our upgrade - just wish that we weren't given conflicting stories and would have appreciated more transparency. Hope the others who are waiting are starting to see things coming through.

tabiphile

These are very challenging times. If you are in the trades, or manufacturing, sales in almost any industry you are being challenged by unprecedented (not unpresidented )supply chain, staffing, communication, scheduling problems. What separates the good from the great and best from the rest is how you manage conflict and how you set customer expectations. Great business people understand that crisis management creates customer/business relationship opportunities. These challenging situations provide an opportunity for customer contact and expectation management. When the <stuff> hits the fan great leaders go into communication overdrive. They reach out to you. They tell you what is happening. They show you what they are up against and what they are trying to do about it. They make the customer aware of the situation to the extent that the customer will accept the unacceptable. Here normal business process and communication channels must be set aside and replaced with a war room mentality. Put someone in charge of identifying delayed shipments. Prepare a message, a crisp overview of the situation. Reach out to every affected dealer and customer. Establish continuous and frequent communications and follow-up with anyone who is flaming out. Managing customer expectations takes simple but hard work. The right people will thrive on the satisfaction of tilting crisis to customer satisfaction and loyalty. But it takes a plan and initiative.
 Someone with real business savvy will see the opportunities.

<<removed abbreviation for inappropriate word, Verna, T@B Admin>>

Ron_L

@tabiphile very well said! As a marketing/comms person myself, I can't agree with you more - I think you hit at the crux of my frustration (and my original "BS/Incompetence" comment). The experience that we had with our first camper (a Tab 320) was outstanding - so much so, that we decided to sell it, then upgrade to the larger 400 Boondock package. We checked it out at the dealer yesterday and are looking forward to our first trip next weekend.

Charlie_FYFM

Any further updates on TAB deliveries?  Are they catching up with demand, or are we still hearing 2-3 week delay?  Any info appreciated.

CJax

@Charlie_FYFM ours arrived at the dealer on Aug 11 (ordered Feb). We will travel to pick it up next week.

TopTab

we just ordered 320 Boondock last week. A dealer said about 12 week lead.  We will see. As long as it’s here for next Summer. 

Da_Birds

We ordered our T@B in October 2020 and was given a delivery date in May 2021. It didn't arrive until June, without cushions. The cushions took another 3 weeks to arrive. We weren't given the option to have it stay at the manufacturer until the cushions arrived. After hearing the OP's story I suspect my dealer decided to get our T@B delivered w/o cushions to help keep things moving.

I suspect when the OP's inquiry was made they were probably waiting on cushions AND still needed to install the AC. Since they were waiting on cushions there was no rush to put the AC in so there it sat with no AC or cushions. Then the cushions arrived.....oops.

In any case, it seems obvious to me they weren't joking. Why wouldn't they just continue to tell you they were waiting on cushions if they were joking? Why admit it was the AC they were waiting on in the end? Seems they were being honest if not 100% forthcoming about the totality of the situation. Incompetence would be delivering the T@B with cushions but no AC.

I worked in service (product) delivery and dealt with customers upset about delays. I have a few "sayings" that I've taken away from that experience. The first is, "if you ask a lot of questions wanting an honest answer you should be prepared to get answers you don't like". The second is, "if someone is going outside of the box or above and beyond for you, there is a chance something is going to get lost or broken". Lastly, "when everything is a priority then nothing is a priority".

We started to get really frustrated with our delays too but we decided we really only had two options: 1. let things work themselves out 2. walk away. We almost walked away but now we are very happy we didn't!

<<removed an abbreviation for inappropriate words and inserted “joking” in it’s place. - Verna, T@B Forum Admin>>

Da_Birds

<<removed an abbreviation for inappropriate words and inserted “joking” in it’s place. - Verna, T@B Forum Admin>>

I apologize if the the abbreviation I used was inappropriate. However, I was using the same abbreviation that is used (unedited) in the original post.


<thank you, I missed the first one—none of these are allowed. In my spare volunteer time I am making a dent on another unapproved abbreviation, but it has been used a lot and it’s taking time, Hopefully these notes will remind those who have forgotten about the forum rules that ask for no inappropriate language on our family friendly forum > thank you,  Verna, T@B Forum Admin

CarrieT

I bought my TAB 400BD in July 2022 without a screen door, and still no screen door. I have had it at the Dealership since July 2022 for basic warranty repairs, and they still don't have the parts (something as small as a shower curtain hook). What is frustrating is that NuCamp still markets happy owners, and they keep selling trailers without honoring those of us who own a trailer.  I am making payments on a trailer I can't use. So far I am not a happy Nu Camp owner. 

Denny16

You should drop nüCamp Customer Care/Experience a note and tell them the issue with the dealer not getting your TaB finished and delivered, they might be able to light a fire under the dealership, who seems to have dropped the ball.
 Cheers 

Sharon_is_SAM

@CarrieT - Customer Experience:  help@nucamprv.com 

GregChris

Boy I'm glad I got mine preowned from a private seller. It seems I remember Wahlberg RV having several 320's in stock in Sept. 2022. We looked at them, but couldn't pass up this deal because of the extras.