Snapfish Snaps to Attention When It Comes to Customer Complaints

Yesterday, I attended Forward '08, an excellent conference that the Oregon Chapter of the American Marketing Association organized. The event focused on non-tradtional marketing approaches. The keynote speaker was Andy Sernovitz, one of my favorite word of mouth experts. In his presentation, Andy stressed that companies need to be much more cognizant of what bloggers are saying about their products and service and react quickly when necessary.

I've seen firsthand that Snapfish gets the importance of the monitoring the blogsphere and reacting appropriately. On 5/14, I posted a critique about a customer service experience that my wife had. If you scroll down in that post, you'll see that Dean Cookson, Director of Systems and Support Operations for Snapfish (a division of hp), provided a detailed response to my wife's complaint. I like the tone and content of Dean's message. It's not defensive. Instead, he simply explained what happened and how the company is working to compensate customers who experienced a similar situation and what they're doing to avoid future problems. He also pointed out how the company is working with an interesting new platform called Get Satisfaction to address customer complaints. I'll be checking out that service soon and reporting back to you.

Comments

[Andy Sernovitz]

Hi Patrick -

It was great to see you again. Thanks for the mention!

Andy

[ona]

Hello Patrick,

I found your blog when trying to sort out my own Snapfish issues. I really don't see how HP/Snapfish have "responded".

I was a loyal Snapfish customer for many years...basically since they began. But recently they moved their customer support overseas and they are no longer the same service.

I recently placed an order which never arrived. It was a monumental undertaking JUST to get them to resend the order, which took twice as long as they said it would to arrive. Then when it did arrive, the photos were a mess. Cropped in odd places, wrong finish, no borders...this is over 70 photos in 8x10 size.

I once again had to run the gauntlet of customer service and all they could do was "refer my case to tier 2 support". I am still waiting for Tier 2 support to contact me. I am out almost $200 and have no photos.

I'd be interested to know who you talked to at Snapfish to get results and how exactly they insured you that they were going to "change".

I personally am spreading the word to everyone I know to avoid this company as it is no longer the same. Moving their customer support overseas was the worst mistake they've ever made and it is clear from their policies that all they care about is their profit margins and not the people to whom they are supposed to be providing a service.

Thanks for listening. I hope my feedback helps others avoid what I've been through with these %$#@!%$# people.

[Dean Cookson]

Ona,
I'm the person who responded to Patrick's original posting, I'm the head of the Technical Operations and Customer Service functions here at Snapfish. I'm sorry that your order was handled badly and that our call center wasn't able to resolve things for you on the first call. Please contact me directly with your Snapfish login name (I can be reached at first.last AT hp.com) and I *will* get it straightened out for you. We successfully fulfill tens of thousands of orders every day and, as I said in my response to Patrick, I can't promise that we'll never mess one up, but we'll absolutely fix it when we do.

Dean

[Paul]

I've also had terrible customer service with Snapfish. I ordered 100 photos on Sept 7, and Snapfish sent me 50 photos printed at the wrong size, 4 X 6, rather than 5.3 X 4. (Digital photos have to be printed at 5.3, or the pictures will be cropped.). Some of the heads in my photos were cut off.

Snapfish had me mail back the photos and credited my account, rather than just printing the photos at the correct size. I had to go back and pick out 50 photos.

Today I got the 50 photos, and the are the wrong size again! I emailed Snapfish, but got back a response telling me my email was not specific enough. This angers me. I don't feel like I am talking to a human, but to automated system with fake understanding.

I had 500 photos uploaded to Snapfish to print, but now I will have to upload them to Kodak, because I simply can't trust Snapfish do print them right, and can't seem to speak to a human who will give me anything other than a pat response.

[Molly]

I can totally relate to these issues from Snapfish. I have ordered many items from them before without a problem. However, the first time I ordered from them, I wound up receiving someone else's pictures entirely! I thought it was a hoot at the time. Only now do I realize the full extent of Snapfish's problems, after having gone through the whole run around with customer service in far-away lands. Hope Snapfish does "change" for the better in the future and fixes these horrible mistakes.

[Sherri]

I have had a totally frustrating experience with snapfish. On December 2nd I ordered some pictures from them and a note pad woth a picture on it. My photo stationary has been sitting in a "printed" status for 10 days. I e-mailed asking when it would ship. I got an auto response that made absolutely no sense in regards to the question I asked. I then called the 1-800 number. The call wait time was up to 45 minutes - mine was answered in 20. The call center must be in India. I could not understand a word the poor guy said. I THINK my order will arrive in 2-3 days but he talked about resubmitting the order so I don't know what they are doing. The e-mail blamed things on increased volume. It is like Christmas snuck up on them! :-) Oh well, hopefully my Christmas order will arrive in time. But I won't use Snapfish for any time sensitive products in the future. In fact, I ordered products from Shutterfly on the same day and received them by December 10th.

[Donna]

I will never order from Snapfish again. There are way to many choices out there for what I have been through. Please don't use this company.

[Heather Hirsch]

I recently had an awful experience with Snapfish customer service. I found this site and contact Mr. Cookson. He responded right away and made everything right. Snapfish has my loyalty again. Thanks for the information!