Lost Order = Lost Customer

Albert Dickson

I've only recently started using the Pro Sales functions of SM on a trial basis. I do 99.8% of my printing and billing localy or in house. I realy wanted to Give SM a go since I had been usinfg the web hosting parts as a Power user for several years. I figured I could start with a few smaller jobs printed and sold via SM and BayPhoto to test the waters.
Of the eight or so jobs I used SM vendors for (printing and collecting payment) 2 were botched resulting in reprinting, refunds and delayed delivery. I know that Bay Photo has a keen reputation and I know that the other print house who does cards is also a graduate of SM's tough selection process. However, this has embarassed me with my customers 25% of the time in the short period I have been trialing these services.
I have been a strong vocal promoter of SM for quite some time but this has my hairs up just a bit. I am dealing with the Help Heros at SM now on the latest issue but the customer is sure to be disapointed and this will cost me money. Money in refunds now and lost business in the furture. I am just glad these were small jobs.
Venting......Venting......Venting!

Andy

Albert, I'd like to personally investigate. Can I have the order #s in question?

Albert Dickson

Certainly Andy and Thank you.

#1957763 Was a small seasonal card order. Ordered for overnight shipping via FedEx. Advised via email that it shipped at 6:00am on 12/16 for 12/17 delivery. When it did not arrive I enquired about it and was told "sorry, we will have to reprint this order". Polite enough but why the "Order was processed and shipped" email if that was not true.

#1915693 The issue was a much less frustrating one and one that was a learning experience for me. The Crops of the images came in tighter on the prints than was shown on the crop adjustment template used during the order process. I personaly looked at the crops and helped the customer place this order. Not being comfortable with letting them order from my SM site without my oversite. I also employed a print delay to review images to avoid this sort of thing. The reprint was handled quickly and efficiently. I would have swept this under the rug with no further mention had not the recent issue happened so soon afterwards.

Thanks for your attention on this matter. As always, you are on top of things.
Albert.

Addendum to reply: Just recieved this. This certainly helps.

Ann McRae [SmugMug Hero], Dec-18 01:47 pm (MST):
Hi Albert

Thanks for getting back to us. I don't know what went wrong, exactly, but it looks like there has been a problem with the FedEx pick up of the order. I have requested that the cards be reprinted, and shipped directly to Kim. I am very sorry about the problem with this order, and do apologize.

I want you to know that any and all shipping and order problems are covered by our great print guarantee. If you find that you are refunding customers for orders placed through us, please let us know. We will help you to take care of the problems.

http://www.smugmug.com/prints/our-guarantee.mg

Tell us the order numbers that you have had problems with previously, so we can sort them out. I've refunded shipping on this order for your customer. Please let us know if you have any other questions. We are always happy to help.

Season's Greetings
Ann
SmugMug Support Hero

Andy

Albert Dickson wrote: »

Certainly Andy and Thank you.

#1957763 Was a small seasonal card order. Ordered for overnight shipping via FedEx. Advised via email that it shipped at 6:00am on 12/16 for 12/17 delivery. When it did not arrive I enquired about it and was told "sorry, we will have to reprint this order". Polite enough but why the "Order was processed and shipped" email if that was not true.

The shipping email is true, we only send it once we know it's in the hands of the shipper (Fedex in this case). But it looks like shipping fail on the part of the shipper, which is why we reprint and ship again, (all at our cost, and we even refund the shipping on the original order). The SmugMug guarantee knows no bounds, and covers everything. I'm really sorry, we do millions of orders, and a very small percentage have things like this happen - of course we try to prevent it, but the fact remains, that some orders are going to get messed up like this. I wish we could have 100% perfection - we're darn close - and I'm sorry you and your customer got affected by this.

#1915693 The issue was a much less frustrating one and one that was a learning experience for me. The Crops of the images came in tighter on the prints than was shown on the crop adjustment template used during the order process. I personaly looked at the crops and helped the customer place this order. Not being comfortable with letting them order from my SM site without my oversite. I also employed a print delay to review images to avoid this sort of thing. The reprint was handled quickly and efficiently. I would have swept this under the rug with no further mention had not the recent issue happened so soon afterwards.

Again this is what our Guarantee is for. I'm glad you got a new order!

Albert Dickson

All true. You will get no argument from me. I just wanted to voice my frustration with 2 issues popping up in such short order. I am better now (doubled my meds).

SamirD

Not the same issue, but the same topic so I'll post here.

I know of at least two customers who were never able to complete their order in the cart. :cry I suspect that it probably was a browser or system issue, but nevertheless the customers let me know and I even told them to call me when they were in front of a computer again. No calls. :cry

And these are customers that actually reached out to me. There's probably others that just gave up.

Is there a browser incompatibility message on the 'Buy' side of the gallery? If a user is using an incompatible browser to view the gallery, that's not as big a deal. But when they can't place an order, that's a problem. Also, how prominent is help if they are having problems ordering?

Andy

SamirD wrote: »

Not the same issue, but the same topic so I'll post here.

I know of at least two customers who were never able to complete their order in the cart. :cry I suspect that it probably was a browser or system issue, but nevertheless the customers let me know and I even told them to call me when they were in front of a computer again. No calls. :cry

And these are customers that actually reached out to me. There's probably others that just gave up.

Is there a browser incompatibility message on the 'Buy' side of the gallery? If a user is using an incompatible browser to view the gallery, that's not as big a deal. But when they can't place an order, that's a problem. Also, how prominent is help if they are having problems ordering?

We support all the major Browsers, Samir - here is our listing: http://www.smugmug.com/help/supported-systems

If they have trouble in the cart it is usually always due to cookies being blocked, or a card failure on the part of the buyer. The system is working, as we're doing record # of orders this holiday season. We'd love to help anyone that needs it, just write our Support Heroes and ask. Thanks!

SamirD

Andy wrote: »

We support all the major Browsers, Samir - here is our listing: http://www.smugmug.com/help/supported-systems

I'm aware of this, but a user browsing a gallery and having difficulty in the cart may not. Is there a message that they will see if they're in the cart with an unsupported browser? Similar to the unsupported browser message on youtube?

Andy wrote: »

If they have trouble in the cart it is usually always due to cookies being blocked, or a card failure on the part of the buyer. We'd love to help anyone that needs it, just write our Support Heroes and ask. Thanks!

The problem is that someone will typically walk away rather than ask for help. And I don't know how obvious it is in the cart who they ask for help or where.

I can see that if I'm losing sales like this, others are too. I'd like to see some UI changes that prevent these losses.

Andy

SamirD wrote: »

I'm aware of this, but a user browsing a gallery and having difficulty in the cart may not. Is there a message that they will see if they're in the cart with an unsupported browser? Similar to the unsupported browser message on youtube?

The problem is that someone will typically walk away rather than ask for help. And I don't know how obvious it is in the cart who they ask for help or where.

I can see that if I'm losing sales like this, others are too. I'd like to see some UI changes that prevent these losses.

Most all will work, including many we don't list on that page. We even support IE6 in the Shopping Cart We don't display a message.

Samir, we've done millions of orders and a kabillion prints via our cart. I'm really sorry you had this happen, but I can assure you it's not prevalent.

SamirD

Andy wrote: »

Most all will work, including many we don't list on that page. We even support IE6 in the Shopping Cart We don't display a message.

Good to know. That eliminates what I thought might have been the root cause of the problem.

Andy wrote: »

Samir, we've done millions of orders and a kabillion prints via our cart. I'm really sorry you had this happen, but I can assure you it's not prevalent.

I know, and that's why I'm surprised some of my customers became lost customers. I just hope as we settle into another stable computing environment for the next 3 years that it won't be an issue until the next upgrade cycle.

As always, thank you Andy for the quick replies and forthright answers.

SamirD

Andy wrote: »

Most all will work, including many we don't list on that page.

I hate to bring this back up, but I just got this email from a customer:

"Now that I think about it I'm sure the issues I had with purchasing the photo were caused by google chrome, ill try again later on today with another browser and there shouldn't be an issue."

So does chrome have issues with the cart?

Andy

SamirD wrote: »

So does chrome have issues with the cart?

None that I know of, I just purchased using Chrome win and mac and it worked fine.

SamirD

Thank you for the quick reply Andy. I'll see what happens in the next day or so. Hopefully they're able to place the order through another browser.

Andy

SamirD wrote: »

Thank you for the quick reply Andy. I'll see what happens in the next day or so. Hopefully they're able to place the order through another browser.

Have them write us, we can help your customer. This is why we're here. But my first thought is a plugin that's blocking cookies.

SamirD

Andy wrote: »

Have them write us, we can help your customer. This is why we're here. But my first thought is a plugin that's blocking cookies.

I forgot about plugins. That's a really good guess.

I would have him write SM, but I know my customers. They won't go through the process just for a photo. Hopefully he'll try another browser and have no issues. And if he does have an issue, then I'll get on the phone with him and diagnose what I can before getting in touch with the help desk. Even though the process is longer with me in the middle, I think my customers feel more comfortable with me there.