Can I share a story of excellent customer service?

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

08/11/2004 04:38:51 AM · #1

It's tangentially related to DPC as there have been a few threads recently about folks here designing and printing business cards (either using their photographs or advertising their photographic services) and I have recommended the services of Vistaprint in these forums.

I have previously used Vistaprint.co.uk and ordered the free business cards (the ones with preset designs, vistaprint contact info and logo on the back) and paid only for postage. The quality of these was excellent so when I was finally ready to order some proper business ones for my husband, Pete and I, I was happy to go back to Vistaprint.

The price for this new order was excellent, coming to only Â£63 including priority printing and shipping for 1000 each of 2 designs, full colour printing, glossy varnish on fronts, plain white backs...

Well, I got them yesterday morning and there was a problem:

When I designed the card I used the image and text placement tools on their website. I added some webding and wingding characters into the text using a drop down they provided - a phone symbol before the phone number, a globe before the web address and an envelope before the email address.

I also paid extra for 7 day shipping (quickest and most expensive of 3 options) so that Pete could start giving them out before finally leaving his current contract place at the end of this month. He's been there for several years so he has some good contacts and we wanted to have the new business cards ready as soon as possible to give him time to hand them out.

Before finalising the order I checked the preview page which showed that everything (including symbols) looked perfect and initialled this to show I'd checked.

Anyway, I opened them and they looked good but the envelope symbol didn't come out - it came out as an "S" with an accent above it.

I tried to find a contact number but the UK website has NO telephone contact. Grrr! So I called the (freephone) number on the US site (which is charged at normal international rates if called from the UK) and got trhough to their Jamaican call centre and a lovely lady called Nadisha. She said that the European business didn't have any call numbers for help but that they were able to deal with any problems in any region from the call centre right there.

First off I said that since the number was not freephone for me would she be permitted to call me back instead which she did straight away.

Then I explained the main problem and also mentioned that the cropping wasn't quite right either. She logged on to my account looked at the preview of the cards to see exactly what I meant and made sure that she really understand the issue by clarifying with me.

She tried to look into it whilst I was on the phone but it proved to be something that required more research so she she said to leave it with her and that she would call me back (and checked when it would be convenient to do so because of the time difference between Jamaica and UK). She promised she'd try her best to resolve it and call me back yesterday but if not she'd call me the next day for sure. She seemed to genuinely appreciate that I was concerned about the time issue and getting it resolved as quickly as possible for me.

Well she clearly spent all afternoon on the problem. I could tell because she clearly kept trying one thing or another and then setting up a proof on the system. I could see all the test proofs listed under my account. No charge, of course, since she was ordering the proofs at her end as part of her quest to solve the problem. I must admit that I was curious as to the point of having the preview facility on the website if the preview wasn't a real arbiter of what the final print would look like. They only offer proofs at an extra cost. I think it may be that the preview is intended for use to check for layout and typos but people who want to check colour accuracy ask for a proof too. Given that the preview showed the cards as they should be I knew the fault lay with them and not with me.

Anyway she called me back last night (abou 8 pm my time) to let me know she'd successfully sorted it all out. She had to liaise with a techie to ensure the symbol would print correctly which it now does. I didn't quite catch why it didn't but I'm not concerned about the reason as I know it wasn't a mistake on my part.

During the original call I'd also mentioned that I wasn't happy with the cropping. I'd taken their advice in terms of placing my images and text and even made sure that the image bled outside of the crop lines provided but their cropping had been slightly tight on one side to the extent that there was a white edge on the other side.

She's arranged for a reprint (done in the Netherlands which is where the first lot were shipped to me from). She is confident that the symbol issue has been resolved so has listed the reason for the reprint (that the printers will see) as a cropping issue to ensure they pay more attention to that this time around. I said I wanted them to make sure they actually used the preview/ proof favilities to see how the card should be cropped.

It's still a 7 day turnaround but my order will go to the front of the 7 day orders queue and those are already at the front of the regular priority queues. A refund of original shipping cost will be applied to my credit card (reducing total cost to us to only Â£50 total) and she said we can keep or bin the original set of 2000 cards. I guess we'll still get the cards in time for Pete to hand them out before leaving though not as early as we'd hoped.

Regarding the old cards, we decided that since the problem with the symbol is so minor and the cropping issue isn't ideal but happens to work with my design because the design actually has vertical white lines in it so the white edge at the right looks like another one of those, we figured we can use the original set for non-business use such as exchanging contact details on holiday etc, entering prize draws etc.

My feeling is that good service is partly about getting it right the first time around BUT everyone makes mistakes and no service is likely to get it right every single time. So how a problem is resolved is a true litmus test of the service orientation of a business.

Konador

Canon EOS-500D Rebel T1i

08/11/2004 04:44:05 AM · #2

How much are they paying you for this post?

Hehe only joking :) Sounds like a great service! I don't know anywhere that would call you back if the phone rate is too expensive, and everything about them sounds great :)

Sony E 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS

08/11/2004 04:49:16 AM · #3

Nowt!

Since we're all so ready to publicise bad service/ problem goods I like to make the same fuss about GOOD service...

I did the same when I got service WAY beyond what I expected from Brasher boots though not in this forum as it wasn't relevant to DPC.

Trust me that I am equally vocal about crap service too!

Message edited by author 2004-08-11 04:49:35.

willem

Sony Alpha a6700

08/11/2004 05:12:55 AM · #4

That is really good customer service, unlike most of the crap one usually experiences where any specific question is just answered with a reply from their database and is not applicable to the question in the first place.

And you are right, with people posting their bad experiences everywhere, why not post a good one once in a while.

Willem

08/11/2004 10:24:58 AM · #5

Yup, that's what I figured!

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

08/13/2004 05:21:59 PM · #6

Second set arrived this morning. Perfectly printed and cropped.

BIG THUMBS UP!

geewhy

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

08/13/2004 05:29:55 PM · #7

It`s so refreshing to hear of somebody getting that quality of aftersales service in this day and age.
My experience has generally been ..we`ve got your money now disappear.