Snapfish Customer Service Problems Continue - Is Overseas Outsourcing To Blame?

A few months ago, I blogged about a frustrating customer service experience that my wife had with Snapfish, an online photo production website. I was impressed with how quickly I received a comment on that post from Dean Cookson, director of Systems and Support Operations for Snapfish. His answer seemed reasonable enough so it prompted me to post a favorable response. But, as you'll see in the comments section on that post, Ona, one of my blog readers, posted a comment on 7/15/08 sharing her tale of woe regarding Snapfish which she attributes to outsourced overseas customer service.

I'm not sure whether Snapfish has outsourced its customer service but Ona's note raises some warning flags about whether Snapfish might be engendering a lot of bad buzz in the interest of saving money on its customer service operations. I'm sure that most people have experienced frustrations like Ona's. While I'm not absolutely opposed to overseas customer service, few companies can pull it off successfully since they tend to scrimp on training and quality control. In fact, problems are so rampant in overseas customer service that they've become a common joke as you'll see in the hilarious video from Reno 911!, one of my favorite TV shows.

Comments

[Patrick787]

The same day that this post appeared, Dean Cookson commented on another part of this blog at http://blog.galvincomm.com/my_weblog/2008/05/snapfish-snaps-to-attention-when-it-comes-to-customer-complaints.html#comments offering to help resolve Ona's problems himself.

I'm impressed with how Dean is actively monitoring Snapfish's online buzz and reacting quickly to it. When I worked in my family's retail furniture business, I learned that sometimes the customers that had the biggest problems associated with their orders became our best referral sources. When we took steps to solve their problems quickly, we were often rewarded with their loyalty and referrals.