Why is Customer Support telling Customers I can provide them with a Digital Download?!?

[Cat]

I got a message from a customer today. She had ordered a seating chart for a wedding this weekend, and apparently it got lost in the mail. Customer support told her to contact me so I could provide her with a digital version that she could print locally! WHAT?!? I'm completely baffled by this. I have no way to download her seating chart digitally other than taking a screen shot - which wouldn't be of sufficient resolution for something that size anyhow. What on earth is customer support thinking? Are they somehow expecting me to re-create the design on my own software and enter all of her data by hand?!? I don't have access to all of the Zazzle fonts - plus, I design my templates on Zazzle's software, it would take me hours to re-create it. I'm super frustrated by this. Either give us designers a way to download digital copies of designs, or don't tell customers that I can somehow magically make it happen for them! 

[CreativeLeahG]

Ask her to send you a copy/screenshot of the customer support message. It is likely not true.

[Krysanthe]

This was my first thought too.

[CreativeLeahG]

Either way, you are under NO obligation to do it. You assure them it can't be done despite what they were advised then block them if they persist. 

[Cian]

Hey folks,

Just want to clear this one up.

In Customer Support we will never advise that we will provide a digital copy of your work. It's just not something we facilitate at Zazzle.

The odd time, we will get requests asking us to purchase the rights or a digital copy. In these cases, we don't want you to miss out on potential sales - even though it may be outside of Zazzle. So we advise them that we don't own the rights to your artwork and as such, if they are looking to purchase the artwork or the rights to a piece, it's something they would need to discuss with you, the Creator.

We don't specify that it will be customized or that it can be printed elsewhere, we simply default to you the Creators in these requests as you have final say over what you do with your designs.

I feel as though the above may have been a misunderstanding, this is not a great example of how we handle things as we do not offer digital copies or put the onus on you to provide such things if there are problems with a customers order.

As @CreativeLeahG pointed out, I'd advise them it's not something that can be done and to follow up with our Customer Support Team.

- Cian

[CreativeLeahG]

Hi Cian

thank you for your input (reply edited as I misunderstood answer)

[Cat]

@Cian Thanks for clarifying. I'm thinking perhaps the customer either misunderstood or mis-represented what support told her. The seating chart she ordered was on a foam core board, so I offered to transfer the design to a poster - which would have gotten there with more than enough time using Zip Plus shipping, but she didn't seem interested in that solution, and as much as I want to be helpful, I just couldn't justify doing several hours of free work to re-create the design and send her a pdf - which seemed to be what she was expecting. Hopefully this was just a one-off bad situation.

[JaymeLee]

I had this happen too. I think it was last year.  The customer acted like I was lying to them.  I told them the same thing... about all of the fonts and sometimes building the design on the platform.  I explained that there's no way to do a transaction like that on here and we lend the company designs to manufacture actual products.

[PacifierCity]

@Zazzle / @Cian - Since one could potentially recreate something through the "create" side of the design tool and then download it...  Are we then allow to sell that digital copy to a customer?  Or does Z own the copyright to that work?  I could probably read through the agreements to figure this out, but this situation has not occurred for me, so I'm not too invested at this point... just curious...

PC

......................

[Cat]

That's an interesting idea that I hadn't considered. Is there some way I could have transferred the design to Create so she (and only she) could download it? I mean, I did feel bad for her in this situation, and I would have been willing to let her have it for free - I just didn't want to do hours of free work, and I also don't want to publish it for the whole world to have for free. 

UPDATE - I just tried to copy/paste a design from the regular design tool into the create tool and I couldn't make it work - no way to paste it, at least not that I could find. So, while it would give me access to all of the fonts, unless I wanted to re-create the design in the create tool (which would be almost as much work as re-creating it in GIMP or something like that) I don't think it's a viable solution. Harumph! 😑

[shellifitz]

That is by design.  If we could  copy and paste designs to the create tool and download them, then any body could by making an edit and then it would be in their saved design folder and they could paste it into the create tool and dl it.  This was part of what the big uproar was about when the create tool and collaborations were first introduced... because in the TOS there was no clarity on whether this was possible and also who would own the rights to the "in progress" designs.  

@PacifierCity if it is your own design you created that you own the rights to, then you have the right to sell it outside of Zazzle.  Zazzle has been granted a non exclusive license to your designs, but they do not own copyrights to them.   If you create a design using only their elements then I still think they do not own the copyright to it... since the elements and most fonts are all CC0.  I am not sure about using the designer contributed freebies... that would be a good question to have answered by Z.  But as far as "recreating" your own design, it belongs to you and not Zazzle.  Cian said as much in his reply.