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.
I 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. 🙂
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
Every Org Has There own Rules and Regulations To follow.
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
Their support is abysmal. I have been trying to explain a bug that they have in their software and truly think they have hired a bunch of idiots.
I am a software developer. I have diagnosed the problem and explained how to fix it. Instead they continue to send me emails about how they tried to replicate the problem.
The issue is, I gave them step by step instructions on how to replicate the problem, but they don’t bother to follow those steps, so of course they cannot replicate the problem.
When uploading photos from Picasa while editing a photo book, you should be able to hit the GET PHOTOS button and see all the photos just uploaded from Picasa. However, the Snapfish software is not refreshing the photos area each time the Get Photos button is hit, so the new photos are not available. You must save your photo book, get out of the edit photo book area, open a new window open the book again and then hit the Get Photos. Now miraculously the new photos are available.
I have sent email after email to Snapfish about this issue. It happens with every photo book I create. They do not bother to read what the actual problem is. I guess the solution is to quit using them.
Dismal customer service!!!!
I spent an entire weekend loading photos and creating 6 separate custom calendars to give family as gifts.
I submitted the order (including credit card info and delivery address) and got an error. I took a print screen of the error and emailed support asking for guidance.
I got a response asking what the error was – they didn’t even bother looking at the error message I sent them. I replied asking them to see my original email that provided them with that info and I haven’t heard back.
I guess I wasted an entire weekend and get to go through this process with another company.
Message for HP – shut down Snapfish!!!!!
Dave– Just FYI, a copy of my recent exchange with Snapfish online helpmate Arun. You’re free to post all or any part of it, but I’m sending it mainly FYI. I also want to email it to Snapfish, so it has a subject line:
SNAPFISH DOESN’T DO “JUST PRINTS” — Insists you look for your stuff in “albums”
AND They Want You to Make “Booklets,” too, or you’re no friend of theirs. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Moses and Mohammed! Not to mention the Buddha, Confucius and Lao-tse!
Here’s the conversation:
Thanks for chatting with us. A customer service agent will be with you right away.
You are now chatting with ‘Arun’
Arun: Hi Mort,
Arun: Welcome to Snapfish Live Help. How may I help you today?
Mort Persky: Hi, Arun
Mort Persky: I don’t want to use albums. I just want to order prints, and want to see all my uploads on a single list. Possible?
Mort Persky: From the looks of it, Snapfish wants everything to be in an album, or preferably six of them. Very unhandy.
Mort Persky: For me, anyway.
Arun: I am sorry, Mort. You can able to see the list of albums but not all pictures to place the order for prints.
Mort Persky: Why’s that?
Mort Persky: Just wondering. I don’t expect to turn Snapfish’s business model around.
Arun: Mort, After selecting all pictures in all albums to place the order for prints, You can see all the pictures in cart page.
Mort Persky: I’m just curious, because it seems to me most people would want to work that way.
Mort Persky: Sounds good, but Snapfish wants me to look at its proposed albums or booklets, and I don’t want to deal with that distraction.
Arun: We are really sorry for the inconvenience caused, We do hope to make this feature very soon.
Arun: We review customer feedback regularly to determine what Snapfish customers most want and your comments will certainly be a part of that process.
Mort Persky: For instance, just a couple of minutes ago, Snapfish treated me to an album I wouldn’t show to my worst enemy, much less a friend, and I especially wouldn’t want one of those doggone things for myself. But there it was, and I wanted to do what I just told you I wanted to do, and there seemed no getting away from the booklet except by doing what we’re doing now.
Mort Persky: So I don’t look forward to using Snapfish, and will go looking for a competitor and pray I can find one who isn’t into albums and booklets or whatever.
Arun: Sorry, just a minute or 2 more.
Arun: We are extremely sorry for the trouble caused in this matter.
Arun: May I assist you with anything else today?
Mort Persky: Anyway, I wrote down the above in the hope it will enter into some discussions at Snapfish. But I can’t hold out much hope if nobody else has tried to talk you into the same thing. So farewell, Snapfish, it was nice knowing you. Haven’t used you for a long time, but now I’m giving a new camera some exercise, plus maybe a daily walk down to my diner, and maybe soon some walks around Union Square, a block and a half from my place in NYC.
Mort Persky: Thanks & Farewell –Mort Persky
Mort Persky: (mpersky@aol.com)