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I’m sorry about the length of this post…but I need to rant…
DON’T USE SHUTTERFLY…
Put simply, Shutterfly.com is website designed to help you organize your digital photos and order prints or photographic gifts online. It’s a bit like your virtual ‘SnappySnaps’ or ‘Boots’, if you will.
The thing that attracted me to Shutterfly.com is that they can turn any digital image into a keepsake or gift. Such as printing onto t-shirts, keyrings, canvases, mouse mats, puzzles, tins, you name it, they can probably do it. I’ve had excellent experience with ordering these sort of products face to face in shops, but I have never ordered online. Whilst I used to send off films to companies such as ‘Tru-print’, I’ve never ordered digital prints online. But how hard could it be, I thought to myself…and gave it a go.
I first came across this site as I wanted to make something special for my sister’s 30th birthday. As it’s her 30th, I wanted to make it extra special somehow, more than just a print. So, I decided that I would get the art printed onto a jigsaw puzzle, and send over the pieces in a series of parcels, kind of like an interactive gift.
In mid February, I spent a good couple of hours designing my work. I found the right photo that I wanted to work with and began creating. I enjoyed it. So, after registering on Shutterfly, I created my photo album (for the gift) and uploaded my ‘art’. I selected how I wanted my work printed…on a puzzle. At this stage, I found out that I needed to increase the pixilation…grrr. I should have known this. Cursing myself profusely, I got to redoing my work. But really, I didn’t mind too much as my ‘2nd edition’ ended up looking better than my original. I thought this was a nice feature of the website, it was able to tell me that my work would look pixelatted by having it blown up, must be a good website, I thought. When I finished, I got to uploading my 2nd image and proceeded to the ‘order’ section. I had to do some cropping as my image size was slightly too big, so I readjusted my image using another ‘cropping’ feature on the website. So, all ordered, I had to rearrange the borders, but that was fine too. I paid approx 18GBP in all, including delivery, which I thought was quite reasonable, considering I didn’t have to leave my house!
A very excited 5 days later, I received my puzzle. However, the lab had cropped off MORE than I had. In my work, I had included writing in the top left hand corner and bottom right hand corner. Both sections of writing had been half missed off. How bloody annoying! Not only had they buggered up my order, but I had lost a week and my post office ‘deadline’ was getting closer and I was back to the beginning! I looked on the site for the help pages and found the number to call customer services. The call took much longer than I had anticipated, with me being left on hold for long sections at a time (thank god for skype), eventually they told me that they would give me another puzzle and free next day delivery. Next day delivery normally costs around (a massive) 12GBP, so I was grateful for the gesture. They credited my account accordingly and they also suggested that I re-edit my work to make the writing not so close to the edges. Although this suggestion meant spending MORE time editting my work, I would rather do that, than for them to mess up again. So, I did just that, uploaded my 3rd image (deleting the other 2 in my account, to make sure no confusion was to be had by anyone), making sure the borders offered more space for potential ‘editing’ at the lab.
2 days later (not exactly ‘next day’, but hey), I received my 2nd puzzle, and AGAIN the same problem had happened. But I only noticed this time due to my thorough checking. I’ll explain…When you get the puzzle, it comes in a lovely tin that has the same image on the lid (so you know what your puzzle looks like). Well on the tin, it looked fine, although there was some very slight cropping to one set of the wording, but you could read the words fine. I was happy. So, I ‘did’ the puzzle to check all the pieces were there and prepare for it to be sent ‘section by section’. I didn’t really think there would anything wrong, but the perfectionist in me wanted to check…and there was still FURTHER cropping. The image on the tin betrayed the puzzle itself. Bloody marvelous! By this time, I was starting to get furious. Doesn’t anyone at these labs check the product? Obviously not, so the lack of attention in the making process and lack of due care to customer satisfaction and quality control, began to rile me. In my experience with other photographic labs, everytime there’s a problem, it’s been brought to my attention BEFORE any product was made (such as large prints, mugs etc), and this particular attention to customer service and customer satisfaction is something I value highly. So, evidently, Shutterfly don’t regard such things as necessary!
So, onto the Customer Service department again. I was given an apology and got another puzzle and next day delivery, although this time I had to be put through to Head Office for more help. I was told again, not to put anything ‘important’ too close to edge…which translated means they don’t know how much of the image they will cut off. Personally, I don’t think any of the image should be cut off and they should have workers who oversee this. Even if the image is the wrong size, they should automatically shrink it, so it all fits, and fill in the rest with a border, and if THAT looks ridiculous, then they should inform me…or am I being unreasonable? I don’t think so.
So, for what felt like the hundredth time, I reworked the whole image, re-uploaded and got next day delivery. Just when I though I was getting somewhere, I noticed that in ‘my order history’ part of the website (where all orders are recorded) it said that I should expect the puzzle in 5 days! By this time, I didn’t have 5 days! I phoned customer services to find out what was going on. The first chap said to me that as I had my puzzle lost in the post, I should expect a replacement to arrive next week…!!!???? WHAT??? Firstly I had not lost anything, and secondly he obviously didn’t listen to me, very bad customer skills…I suppose it didn’t really help that everyone I had ever spoken to at customer services had English as 2nd language, so it made complete understanding rather difficult and ultimately, frustrating. I demanded that I talk to a supervisor (as obviously the first person was looking at the wrong account or was just plain incompetent), who explained it would take 5 days as I would have to include the production time (which it doesn’t clearly state on the site, by the way, when trying to work out how long something will get to you)….This confused me, so I questioned that if you pay ‘x’ amount for next day business delivery, it can really take 5 days from date of order. What a ridiculous service!
ANYWAY…I gave up. I got my 3rd puzzle, and lo and behold, the tin showed an image that was once again CROPPED (even though I moved the letterering adequately as advised)…but once I had completed the puzzle, the actual thing didn’t look as bad as the tin. There was still cropping, but the message could be read legibly. There doesn’t seem to be any harmony by the two components, but conflicting images between the tin image and the puzzle image. I well and truly feel like I have had a very sloppy service and wasted a lot of money on a product that is not the quality I would expect.
The not-free freebies:
Usually as you soon as you sign up, you are offered freebies. I was offered discounts and up to 35 free prints. Nice! There is a link to ‘your special offers’ in teeny tiny writing, right at the bottom of your account page (I only knew about it because someone who worked for Shutterfly customer services, told me about it over the phone, whilst I was complaining about the puzzle!) that tell you what introductory offers you are entitled too. So, the freebies? Well, I never found them to be FREE. For one offer of 25 free prints, I had to pay 2GBP postage, which doesn’t exactly break the bank, but if they’d have said something like ‘free printing, you just pay postage’ I would have probably not bothered. Then, I was offered 10 free prints, to be picked up in store. I thought this was a nice opportunity to have hard copies of some of my favourite digital photos that just sit in my hard drive. But surprise surprise, you have to pay 2GBP to pick them up for processing fees. I only found this out in my confirmation email. Not exactly free (or fair) is it??? Needless to say, I haven’t picked them up yet. Well if they call me, I’ll demand I have them free or not at all and to stop wasting my time…silly little beggars (yikes, I sound like my mother). And as for the 25 images I got printed, guess what…THEY WERE CROPPED and missed off parts of the original digital image.
I managed to get my money back in the end…but what a rip off and waste of time!
DON’T USE SHUTTERFLY…
Put simply, Shutterfly.com is website designed to help you organize your digital photos and order prints or photographic gifts online. It’s a bit like your virtual ‘SnappySnaps’ or ‘Boots’, if you will.
The thing that attracted me to Shutterfly.com is that they can turn any digital image into a keepsake or gift. Such as printing onto t-shirts, keyrings, canvases, mouse mats, puzzles, tins, you name it, they can probably do it. I’ve had excellent experience with ordering these sort of products face to face in shops, but I have never ordered online. Whilst I used to send off films to companies such as ‘Tru-print’, I’ve never ordered digital prints online. But how hard could it be, I thought to myself…and gave it a go.
I first came across this site as I wanted to make something special for my sister’s 30th birthday. As it’s her 30th, I wanted to make it extra special somehow, more than just a print. So, I decided that I would get the art printed onto a jigsaw puzzle, and send over the pieces in a series of parcels, kind of like an interactive gift.
In mid February, I spent a good couple of hours designing my work. I found the right photo that I wanted to work with and began creating. I enjoyed it. So, after registering on Shutterfly, I created my photo album (for the gift) and uploaded my ‘art’. I selected how I wanted my work printed…on a puzzle. At this stage, I found out that I needed to increase the pixilation…grrr. I should have known this. Cursing myself profusely, I got to redoing my work. But really, I didn’t mind too much as my ‘2nd edition’ ended up looking better than my original. I thought this was a nice feature of the website, it was able to tell me that my work would look pixelatted by having it blown up, must be a good website, I thought. When I finished, I got to uploading my 2nd image and proceeded to the ‘order’ section. I had to do some cropping as my image size was slightly too big, so I readjusted my image using another ‘cropping’ feature on the website. So, all ordered, I had to rearrange the borders, but that was fine too. I paid approx 18GBP in all, including delivery, which I thought was quite reasonable, considering I didn’t have to leave my house!
A very excited 5 days later, I received my puzzle. However, the lab had cropped off MORE than I had. In my work, I had included writing in the top left hand corner and bottom right hand corner. Both sections of writing had been half missed off. How bloody annoying! Not only had they buggered up my order, but I had lost a week and my post office ‘deadline’ was getting closer and I was back to the beginning! I looked on the site for the help pages and found the number to call customer services. The call took much longer than I had anticipated, with me being left on hold for long sections at a time (thank god for skype), eventually they told me that they would give me another puzzle and free next day delivery. Next day delivery normally costs around (a massive) 12GBP, so I was grateful for the gesture. They credited my account accordingly and they also suggested that I re-edit my work to make the writing not so close to the edges. Although this suggestion meant spending MORE time editting my work, I would rather do that, than for them to mess up again. So, I did just that, uploaded my 3rd image (deleting the other 2 in my account, to make sure no confusion was to be had by anyone), making sure the borders offered more space for potential ‘editing’ at the lab.
2 days later (not exactly ‘next day’, but hey), I received my 2nd puzzle, and AGAIN the same problem had happened. But I only noticed this time due to my thorough checking. I’ll explain…When you get the puzzle, it comes in a lovely tin that has the same image on the lid (so you know what your puzzle looks like). Well on the tin, it looked fine, although there was some very slight cropping to one set of the wording, but you could read the words fine. I was happy. So, I ‘did’ the puzzle to check all the pieces were there and prepare for it to be sent ‘section by section’. I didn’t really think there would anything wrong, but the perfectionist in me wanted to check…and there was still FURTHER cropping. The image on the tin betrayed the puzzle itself. Bloody marvelous! By this time, I was starting to get furious. Doesn’t anyone at these labs check the product? Obviously not, so the lack of attention in the making process and lack of due care to customer satisfaction and quality control, began to rile me. In my experience with other photographic labs, everytime there’s a problem, it’s been brought to my attention BEFORE any product was made (such as large prints, mugs etc), and this particular attention to customer service and customer satisfaction is something I value highly. So, evidently, Shutterfly don’t regard such things as necessary!
So, onto the Customer Service department again. I was given an apology and got another puzzle and next day delivery, although this time I had to be put through to Head Office for more help. I was told again, not to put anything ‘important’ too close to edge…which translated means they don’t know how much of the image they will cut off. Personally, I don’t think any of the image should be cut off and they should have workers who oversee this. Even if the image is the wrong size, they should automatically shrink it, so it all fits, and fill in the rest with a border, and if THAT looks ridiculous, then they should inform me…or am I being unreasonable? I don’t think so.
So, for what felt like the hundredth time, I reworked the whole image, re-uploaded and got next day delivery. Just when I though I was getting somewhere, I noticed that in ‘my order history’ part of the website (where all orders are recorded) it said that I should expect the puzzle in 5 days! By this time, I didn’t have 5 days! I phoned customer services to find out what was going on. The first chap said to me that as I had my puzzle lost in the post, I should expect a replacement to arrive next week…!!!???? WHAT??? Firstly I had not lost anything, and secondly he obviously didn’t listen to me, very bad customer skills…I suppose it didn’t really help that everyone I had ever spoken to at customer services had English as 2nd language, so it made complete understanding rather difficult and ultimately, frustrating. I demanded that I talk to a supervisor (as obviously the first person was looking at the wrong account or was just plain incompetent), who explained it would take 5 days as I would have to include the production time (which it doesn’t clearly state on the site, by the way, when trying to work out how long something will get to you)….This confused me, so I questioned that if you pay ‘x’ amount for next day business delivery, it can really take 5 days from date of order. What a ridiculous service!
ANYWAY…I gave up. I got my 3rd puzzle, and lo and behold, the tin showed an image that was once again CROPPED (even though I moved the letterering adequately as advised)…but once I had completed the puzzle, the actual thing didn’t look as bad as the tin. There was still cropping, but the message could be read legibly. There doesn’t seem to be any harmony by the two components, but conflicting images between the tin image and the puzzle image. I well and truly feel like I have had a very sloppy service and wasted a lot of money on a product that is not the quality I would expect.
The not-free freebies:
Usually as you soon as you sign up, you are offered freebies. I was offered discounts and up to 35 free prints. Nice! There is a link to ‘your special offers’ in teeny tiny writing, right at the bottom of your account page (I only knew about it because someone who worked for Shutterfly customer services, told me about it over the phone, whilst I was complaining about the puzzle!) that tell you what introductory offers you are entitled too. So, the freebies? Well, I never found them to be FREE. For one offer of 25 free prints, I had to pay 2GBP postage, which doesn’t exactly break the bank, but if they’d have said something like ‘free printing, you just pay postage’ I would have probably not bothered. Then, I was offered 10 free prints, to be picked up in store. I thought this was a nice opportunity to have hard copies of some of my favourite digital photos that just sit in my hard drive. But surprise surprise, you have to pay 2GBP to pick them up for processing fees. I only found this out in my confirmation email. Not exactly free (or fair) is it??? Needless to say, I haven’t picked them up yet. Well if they call me, I’ll demand I have them free or not at all and to stop wasting my time…silly little beggars (yikes, I sound like my mother). And as for the 25 images I got printed, guess what…THEY WERE CROPPED and missed off parts of the original digital image.
I managed to get my money back in the end…but what a rip off and waste of time!
I’m sorry about the length of this post…but I need to rant…
DON’T USE SHUTTERFLY…
Put simply, Shutterfly.com is website designed to help you organize your digital photos and order prints or photographic gifts online. It’s a bit like your virtual ‘SnappySnaps’ or ‘Boots’, if you will.
The thing that attracted me to Shutterfly.com is that they can turn any digital image into a keepsake or gift. Such as printing onto t-shirts, keyrings, canvases, mouse mats, puzzles, tins, you name it, they can probably do it. I’ve had excellent experience with ordering these sort of products face to face in shops, but I have never ordered online. Whilst I used to send off films to companies such as ‘Tru-print’, I’ve never ordered digital prints online. But how hard could it be, I thought to myself…and gave it a go.
I first came across this site as I wanted to make something special for my sister’s 30th birthday. As it’s her 30th, I wanted to make it extra special somehow, more than just a print. So, I decided that I would get the art printed onto a jigsaw puzzle, and send over the pieces in a series of parcels, kind of like an interactive gift.
In mid February, I spent a good couple of hours designing my work. I found the right photo that I wanted to work with and began creating. I enjoyed it. So, after registering on Shutterfly, I created my photo album (for the gift) and uploaded my ‘art’. I selected how I wanted my work printed…on a puzzle. At this stage, I found out that I needed to increase the pixilation…grrr. I should have known this. Cursing myself profusely, I got to redoing my work. But really, I didn’t mind too much as my ‘2nd edition’ ended up looking better than my original. I thought this was a nice feature of the website, it was able to tell me that my work would look pixelatted by having it blown up, must be a good website, I thought. When I finished, I got to uploading my 2nd image and proceeded to the ‘order’ section. I had to do some cropping as my image size was slightly too big, so I readjusted my image using another ‘cropping’ feature on the website. So, all ordered, I had to rearrange the borders, but that was fine too. I paid approx 18GBP in all, including delivery, which I thought was quite reasonable, considering I didn’t have to leave my house!
A very excited 5 days later, I received my puzzle. However, the lab had cropped off MORE than I had. In my work, I had included writing in the top left hand corner and bottom right hand corner. Both sections of writing had been half missed off. How bloody annoying! Not only had they buggered up my order, but I had lost a week and my post office ‘deadline’ was getting closer and I was back to the beginning! I looked on the site for the help pages and found the number to call customer services. The call took much longer than I had anticipated, with me being left on hold for long sections at a time (thank god for skype), eventually they told me that they would give me another puzzle and free next day delivery. Next day delivery normally costs around (a massive) 12GBP, so I was grateful for the gesture. They credited my account accordingly and they also suggested that I re-edit my work to make the writing not so close to the edges. Although this suggestion meant spending MORE time editting my work, I would rather do that, than for them to mess up again. So, I did just that, uploaded my 3rd image (deleting the other 2 in my account, to make sure no confusion was to be had by anyone), making sure the borders offered more space for potential ‘editing’ at the lab.
2 days later (not exactly ‘next day’, but hey), I received my 2nd puzzle, and AGAIN the same problem had happened. But I only noticed this time due to my thorough checking. I’ll explain…When you get the puzzle, it comes in a lovely tin that has the same image on the lid (so you know what your puzzle looks like). Well on the tin, it looked fine, although there was some very slight cropping to one set of the wording, but you could read the words fine. I was happy. So, I ‘did’ the puzzle to check all the pieces were there and prepare for it to be sent ‘section by section’. I didn’t really think there would anything wrong, but the perfectionist in me wanted to check…and there was still FURTHER cropping. The image on the tin betrayed the puzzle itself. Bloody marvelous! By this time, I was starting to get furious. Doesn’t anyone at these labs check the product? Obviously not, so the lack of attention in the making process and lack of due care to customer satisfaction and quality control, began to rile me. In my experience with other photographic labs, everytime there’s a problem, it’s been brought to my attention BEFORE any product was made (such as large prints, mugs etc), and this particular attention to customer service and customer satisfaction is something I value highly. So, evidently, Shutterfly don’t regard such things as necessary!
So, onto the Customer Service department again. I was given an apology and got another puzzle and next day delivery, although this time I had to be put through to Head Office for more help. I was told again, not to put anything ‘important’ too close to edge…which translated means they don’t know how much of the image they will cut off. Personally, I don’t think any of the image should be cut off and they should have workers who oversee this. Even if the image is the wrong size, they should automatically shrink it, so it all fits, and fill in the rest with a border, and if THAT looks ridiculous, then they should inform me…or am I being unreasonable? I don’t think so.
So, for what felt like the hundredth time, I reworked the whole image, re-uploaded and got next day delivery. Just when I though I was getting somewhere, I noticed that in ‘my order history’ part of the website (where all orders are recorded) it said that I should expect the puzzle in 5 days! By this time, I didn’t have 5 days! I phoned customer services to find out what was going on. The first chap said to me that as I had my puzzle lost in the post, I should expect a replacement to arrive next week…!!!???? WHAT??? Firstly I had not lost anything, and secondly he obviously didn’t listen to me, very bad customer skills…I suppose it didn’t really help that everyone I had ever spoken to at customer services had English as 2nd language, so it made complete understanding rather difficult and ultimately, frustrating. I demanded that I talk to a supervisor (as obviously the first person was looking at the wrong account or was just plain incompetent), who explained it would take 5 days as I would have to include the production time (which it doesn’t clearly state on the site, by the way, when trying to work out how long something will get to you)….This confused me, so I questioned that if you pay ‘x’ amount for next day business delivery, it can really take 5 days from date of order. What a ridiculous service!
ANYWAY…I gave up. I got my 3rd puzzle, and lo and behold, the tin showed an image that was once again CROPPED (even though I moved the letterering adequately as advised)…but once I had completed the puzzle, the actual thing didn’t look as bad as the tin. There was still cropping, but the message could be read legibly. There doesn’t seem to be any harmony by the two components, but conflicting images between the tin image and the puzzle image. I well and truly feel like I have had a very sloppy service and wasted a lot of money on a product that is not the quality I would expect.
The not-free freebies:
Usually as you soon as you sign up, you are offered freebies. I was offered discounts and up to 35 free prints. Nice! There is a link to ‘your special offers’ in teeny tiny writing, right at the bottom of your account page (I only knew about it because someone who worked for Shutterfly customer services, told me about it over the phone, whilst I was complaining about the puzzle!) that tell you what introductory offers you are entitled too. So, the freebies? Well, I never found them to be FREE. For one offer of 25 free prints, I had to pay 2GBP postage, which doesn’t exactly break the bank, but if they’d have said something like ‘free printing, you just pay postage’ I would have probably not bothered. Then, I was offered 10 free prints, to be picked up in store. I thought this was a nice opportunity to have hard copies of some of my favourite digital photos that just sit in my hard drive. But surprise surprise, you have to pay 2GBP to pick them up for processing fees. I only found this out in my confirmation email. Not exactly free (or fair) is it??? Needless to say, I haven’t picked them up yet. Well if they call me, I’ll demand I have them free or not at all and to stop wasting my time…silly little beggars (yikes, I sound like my mother). And as for the 25 images I got printed, guess what…THEY WERE CROPPED and missed off parts of the original digital image.
I managed to get my money back in the end…but what a rip off and waste of time!
DON’T USE SHUTTERFLY…
Put simply, Shutterfly.com is website designed to help you organize your digital photos and order prints or photographic gifts online. It’s a bit like your virtual ‘SnappySnaps’ or ‘Boots’, if you will.
The thing that attracted me to Shutterfly.com is that they can turn any digital image into a keepsake or gift. Such as printing onto t-shirts, keyrings, canvases, mouse mats, puzzles, tins, you name it, they can probably do it. I’ve had excellent experience with ordering these sort of products face to face in shops, but I have never ordered online. Whilst I used to send off films to companies such as ‘Tru-print’, I’ve never ordered digital prints online. But how hard could it be, I thought to myself…and gave it a go.
I first came across this site as I wanted to make something special for my sister’s 30th birthday. As it’s her 30th, I wanted to make it extra special somehow, more than just a print. So, I decided that I would get the art printed onto a jigsaw puzzle, and send over the pieces in a series of parcels, kind of like an interactive gift.
In mid February, I spent a good couple of hours designing my work. I found the right photo that I wanted to work with and began creating. I enjoyed it. So, after registering on Shutterfly, I created my photo album (for the gift) and uploaded my ‘art’. I selected how I wanted my work printed…on a puzzle. At this stage, I found out that I needed to increase the pixilation…grrr. I should have known this. Cursing myself profusely, I got to redoing my work. But really, I didn’t mind too much as my ‘2nd edition’ ended up looking better than my original. I thought this was a nice feature of the website, it was able to tell me that my work would look pixelatted by having it blown up, must be a good website, I thought. When I finished, I got to uploading my 2nd image and proceeded to the ‘order’ section. I had to do some cropping as my image size was slightly too big, so I readjusted my image using another ‘cropping’ feature on the website. So, all ordered, I had to rearrange the borders, but that was fine too. I paid approx 18GBP in all, including delivery, which I thought was quite reasonable, considering I didn’t have to leave my house!
A very excited 5 days later, I received my puzzle. However, the lab had cropped off MORE than I had. In my work, I had included writing in the top left hand corner and bottom right hand corner. Both sections of writing had been half missed off. How bloody annoying! Not only had they buggered up my order, but I had lost a week and my post office ‘deadline’ was getting closer and I was back to the beginning! I looked on the site for the help pages and found the number to call customer services. The call took much longer than I had anticipated, with me being left on hold for long sections at a time (thank god for skype), eventually they told me that they would give me another puzzle and free next day delivery. Next day delivery normally costs around (a massive) 12GBP, so I was grateful for the gesture. They credited my account accordingly and they also suggested that I re-edit my work to make the writing not so close to the edges. Although this suggestion meant spending MORE time editting my work, I would rather do that, than for them to mess up again. So, I did just that, uploaded my 3rd image (deleting the other 2 in my account, to make sure no confusion was to be had by anyone), making sure the borders offered more space for potential ‘editing’ at the lab.
2 days later (not exactly ‘next day’, but hey), I received my 2nd puzzle, and AGAIN the same problem had happened. But I only noticed this time due to my thorough checking. I’ll explain…When you get the puzzle, it comes in a lovely tin that has the same image on the lid (so you know what your puzzle looks like). Well on the tin, it looked fine, although there was some very slight cropping to one set of the wording, but you could read the words fine. I was happy. So, I ‘did’ the puzzle to check all the pieces were there and prepare for it to be sent ‘section by section’. I didn’t really think there would anything wrong, but the perfectionist in me wanted to check…and there was still FURTHER cropping. The image on the tin betrayed the puzzle itself. Bloody marvelous! By this time, I was starting to get furious. Doesn’t anyone at these labs check the product? Obviously not, so the lack of attention in the making process and lack of due care to customer satisfaction and quality control, began to rile me. In my experience with other photographic labs, everytime there’s a problem, it’s been brought to my attention BEFORE any product was made (such as large prints, mugs etc), and this particular attention to customer service and customer satisfaction is something I value highly. So, evidently, Shutterfly don’t regard such things as necessary!
So, onto the Customer Service department again. I was given an apology and got another puzzle and next day delivery, although this time I had to be put through to Head Office for more help. I was told again, not to put anything ‘important’ too close to edge…which translated means they don’t know how much of the image they will cut off. Personally, I don’t think any of the image should be cut off and they should have workers who oversee this. Even if the image is the wrong size, they should automatically shrink it, so it all fits, and fill in the rest with a border, and if THAT looks ridiculous, then they should inform me…or am I being unreasonable? I don’t think so.
So, for what felt like the hundredth time, I reworked the whole image, re-uploaded and got next day delivery. Just when I though I was getting somewhere, I noticed that in ‘my order history’ part of the website (where all orders are recorded) it said that I should expect the puzzle in 5 days! By this time, I didn’t have 5 days! I phoned customer services to find out what was going on. The first chap said to me that as I had my puzzle lost in the post, I should expect a replacement to arrive next week…!!!???? WHAT??? Firstly I had not lost anything, and secondly he obviously didn’t listen to me, very bad customer skills…I suppose it didn’t really help that everyone I had ever spoken to at customer services had English as 2nd language, so it made complete understanding rather difficult and ultimately, frustrating. I demanded that I talk to a supervisor (as obviously the first person was looking at the wrong account or was just plain incompetent), who explained it would take 5 days as I would have to include the production time (which it doesn’t clearly state on the site, by the way, when trying to work out how long something will get to you)….This confused me, so I questioned that if you pay ‘x’ amount for next day business delivery, it can really take 5 days from date of order. What a ridiculous service!
ANYWAY…I gave up. I got my 3rd puzzle, and lo and behold, the tin showed an image that was once again CROPPED (even though I moved the letterering adequately as advised)…but once I had completed the puzzle, the actual thing didn’t look as bad as the tin. There was still cropping, but the message could be read legibly. There doesn’t seem to be any harmony by the two components, but conflicting images between the tin image and the puzzle image. I well and truly feel like I have had a very sloppy service and wasted a lot of money on a product that is not the quality I would expect.
The not-free freebies:
Usually as you soon as you sign up, you are offered freebies. I was offered discounts and up to 35 free prints. Nice! There is a link to ‘your special offers’ in teeny tiny writing, right at the bottom of your account page (I only knew about it because someone who worked for Shutterfly customer services, told me about it over the phone, whilst I was complaining about the puzzle!) that tell you what introductory offers you are entitled too. So, the freebies? Well, I never found them to be FREE. For one offer of 25 free prints, I had to pay 2GBP postage, which doesn’t exactly break the bank, but if they’d have said something like ‘free printing, you just pay postage’ I would have probably not bothered. Then, I was offered 10 free prints, to be picked up in store. I thought this was a nice opportunity to have hard copies of some of my favourite digital photos that just sit in my hard drive. But surprise surprise, you have to pay 2GBP to pick them up for processing fees. I only found this out in my confirmation email. Not exactly free (or fair) is it??? Needless to say, I haven’t picked them up yet. Well if they call me, I’ll demand I have them free or not at all and to stop wasting my time…silly little beggars (yikes, I sound like my mother). And as for the 25 images I got printed, guess what…THEY WERE CROPPED and missed off parts of the original digital image.
I managed to get my money back in the end…but what a rip off and waste of time!
I have been tempted to use them before, but after your experience I think I will give them a miss.
I mean, you would have thought that after you notified them of the problems, they would have made sure they did what you asked them to do.
Hope your sister's birthday wasn't ruined because of this.
I mean, you would have thought that after you notified them of the problems, they would have made sure they did what you asked them to do.
Hope your sister's birthday wasn't ruined because of this.
Hey! No, my sister loved it...it became VERY drawn out in the end, but she said it made her birthday last longer :)
They epitimised the word: crap *rolls eyes*
They epitimised the word: crap *rolls eyes*
MarcoG wrote:
> Hey! No, my sister loved it...it became VERY drawn out in the
> end, but she said it made her birthday last longer :)
Shh, don't tell them that - they'll think it's a good ploy to use on others. But glad she had a good one.
> Hey! No, my sister loved it...it became VERY drawn out in the
> end, but she said it made her birthday last longer :)
Shh, don't tell them that - they'll think it's a good ploy to use on others. But glad she had a good one.
Don't kodak do similar things on their site? I'd say they were probably more trustworthy. Or Flikr
I think you're right...or even boots.com LOL