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Dave Taylor
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and Attachment Parenting Blog. Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs.

Snapfish support isn't very supportive after all...

I know, this is a tempest in a teapot, but I can't help but be amused by the interchange from Snapfish support. I'm a fan of the site and often use it for prints, but this time I uploaded about thirty photos from a recent trip to Hawaii and encountered what seemed like a bug.

Snapfish logoI sent in a bug report (which wasn't easy to figure out: they don't really want to hear from customers as far as I can tell):

"03/30/2008 01:41 PM: Got a problem: My photo album AlbumID=21902554 has a picture set as the cover image but it's a picture I subsequently deleted. Now I can't change it. A bug?"
Their response was speedy - less than 12 hours - but apparently from the other side of the looking glass or something:
"Hi Dave,

Thank you for writing to us.

Please be informed you that our records indicate that you had 6 Albums in your Snapfish account under this email address: d1taylor@ gmail.com. We suggest you once again check your albums in your account."
Is it just me, or are they completely disconnected from my query and bug report?

This sort of pleasant, but completely pointless interchange reminds me why people hate tech support and are constantly frustrated with their gadgets, gizmos and software systems. And sometimes I am too. Go figure. :-)

Posted by Dave Taylor at March 31, 2008 9:14 AM

Comments

Oh bother... totally disconnected! I have a small business and that's usually the kind of experience I have with receiving emails from customers who I am trying to help. I'm converting slides to digital files and get a lot of seniors who need a lot of help.

As for photo hosting and prints I like Flickr a lot, but for families who don't care to share with the photographer community I've found Phanfare.com to be great. They are very supportive with a toll-free STAFFED phone number and email support within an hour usually. Plus a very active user forum.

Posted by: Saraj on March 31, 2008 9:55 AM

Recently I worked on a Snapfish order, started to send it, then clicked the cancel option. I worked on changes then sent the order for real. I immediately went back into the Snapfish site to continue working on other pictures. That's when I realized that the order went through twice. In less than 10 minutes after the first "order" was sent I sent an email to snapfish customer service. Within 12 hours I got a response saying there was nothing they could do.

I have been a faithful user. Not any more. I will try another site such as shutterfly. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Posted by: Nancy T on July 14, 2008 6:42 AM

In all fairness to Snapfish, I muust relate that the morning after I posted my complaint about the order I tried to cancel, I got an email from them saying I could return my duplicate order when it arrives. They provided instructions and a mailing label. If this works as they indicated then I have to call that fair.

If it doesn't work out, I will update this site again.

I hope they do what they promised because I really like their products and their site.

Posted by: Nancy T on July 15, 2008 6:56 PM

I ordered pictures from Snapfish on September 28th i got an email saying that they shipped on September 29th and i ordered standard 3-5 day shipping. So i thought oh good they should come within this week. It is no October 6th and i still have not received my pictures. I called the 1800 number today and all i was told was that i should wait a couple days and see if they come. Only problem is i have been waiting longer than i should have to get these pictures. I will never order prints from them again and i encourage any of you who like to get prints at a reasonable time after you order them to do the same.

Posted by: Joanna on October 6, 2008 12:51 PM

I Placed An Order About 4 Months Ago On Snapfish And Never Received It, Have Emailed Snapfish About 20 Times And Have Not Heard Back Once. I Am Quite Disappointed In Their Service.

Posted by: Jessica on November 2, 2008 9:20 PM

Guys,I' m a italian photographer, and I have the same problems of you in Italy, now I'm working with a italian producer(local)www.iprintitaly.com
that gave to me better quality and fast delivery.
Luigi

Posted by: luigi on December 31, 2008 3:36 AM

Every Org Has There own Rules and Regulations To follow.

Posted by: imran ali khan on February 17, 2009 9:24 AM

I have a unique experience of Snapfish which I would like to share with you. On behalf of international students at Inernational Training Center of the ILO, Turin, Italy, I uploaded an Alumni Photo Album in December 2008 to Snapfish USA from Turin, Italy. One of my Italian colleagues used his credit card to pay for the cost of the Album. The Album sent by Snapfish got lost in transit as Snapfish never uses an internatioal Courier like DHL etc that can generate a tracking number to check the location of the consignment. In March 2009 again, a re-order was placed by me and still we couldn't get he Album as it was again lost in transit. At present the academic session is over and everybody's gone home. Now, Snapfish USA says I should contact Snapfish Italy for re-order. Here comes the organizational supply chain management flaw. Snapfish USA should have automatically redirected the first order placed online by me to Snapfish Italy for inland dispatch and could have saved us from the mental agony we suffered from loss of a tiring wait. Moreover, the templates loaded to Snapfish USA now cannot be rerieved by me from the Snapfish USA site in the same form as I had uploaded (Simply, the photos in the Album I submitted are displayed on the page as a slide show). Now I have to make again a new Album on the given Snapfish templates, costing me lot of time from my office work. I still don't know if it is a bug or simply a web-design flaw in the Snapfish Site.

Ali

Posted by: Ali on May 11, 2009 2:46 AM
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