How Not To Deal With Customers – Overnight Prints Pulls a Major Fail Whale

So I’ve been using this company called OvernightPrints.com for a while now to print my business cards. They’re relatively inexpensive and they usually do a good job. Although not this time.

This last batch of business cards has been nothing but a nightmare. Not only did they print my cards wrong TWICE, the second time I called I was tossed around like a hot potato. When I finally got to a person in charge of reprinting she simply told me that it was their policy to only reprint an order once. After that they just refund the money. I was bewildered, because I didn’t want to spend the time figuring out another printer’s system. Also to be honestly I needed my business cards last week, literally.

So after a back and forth she FINALLY took a looked at the queue and saw that there was a weird error that had nothing to do with my file. That’s right NOTHING TO DO WITH MY FILE. In fact, what a shocker, it had something to do with their transfer to the printing press.

I called her on her initial lack of willingness to try and figure out the problem. Her response was to say that lots of people take advantage of the reprint policy. Well, automatically assuming that your customer is out to get you isn’t going to get you any loyalty, let alone help your brand image.

So to make a long story short, she’s reprinting them again. I SHOULD have them by Thursday. Stay tuned for the conclusion.

Here are some key takeaways:

DON’T assume your customers are out to get you. Even if some in the past have taken advantage of your policies.
DO look into the problem fully.
DO check your product before shipping it out to the customer. Saying to the customer that you’re so busy that you’re willing to send out crap is not a good response
DON’T shoot your customer all across your phone system. You should enable the “0″ to automatically be sent to customer service and not repeat the menu again and again.
DO pay attention to what people are saying about you on the Internet, especially Social Media. Don’t just follow your screen name do searches for your keywords and brand name as well.
DO respond to any positive or negative comments out on the Net.

Kevin

Tried these guys once. Card was supposed to have a back the same color blue as the text on the front, but it was way off. Didn't seek a reprint: that kind of shoddy quality doesn't get a second chance.

DO use White House Custom Colour (whcc.com) for anything important. I've used them for digital prints and press-printed matter for 4 years, with zero problems.
Seth G.

Yea they've messed up a few times but I've used local people two who have as well. Sometimes it's me though. This time it wasn't me. Most likely won't use them again. Thanks for the link.