Getting lots of complaints about smudged and blurry printing on paper products.

[Cat]

I don't know what's happening, and maybe it's just a coincidence, but I've been getting a lot of customer complaints about printing recently. At first it was color matching issues, now I'm getting reports of invitations arriving with smudges and blurry printing. I'm dutifully sending these folks to customer support, but it really worries me. I'm hoping these are just isolated incidents, but when I'm seeing the same complaints on almost a daily basis, I get concerned. Seems like maybe there's some quality control that needs to be addressed.

[CrazyMermaid]

What percentage of your sales does this affect and is it a specific paper type or design? So far so good for me. I had that one incident where the printer dribbled ink on the invites. Thankfully no more of that. 

[Cat]

It's really hard for me to gauge if this is a big problem or not since I get cancellations every day, and the way the reports work, we don't know why it was cancelled or when, so I've given up even bothering to look at that sort of thing. And at the moment, I can't get the date filters to work in the reports anyhow.

Clearly, most customers are happy with their purchases, so I don't think there's some huge problem here. It was probably just a fluke that I got 2-3 complaints about printing all in the same day (or maybe it was across 2 days, I can't remember.) But it did sorta make me panicky. I think they were all on invitations, though one might have been for a save the date - definitely different paper types though. On one of them it seemed like mostly she was unhappy with the paper, but said the printing was blurry too - hard to know what that means.

I'm sure part of it is just me. I'm not well suited for customer service because I just feel horrible when people are unhappy and it's hard for me to just let it roll of my shoulders so to speak. I think you need to have a Teflon personality to excel in that field! 

I'm still struggling with the best way to communicate my role to customers. My "after purchase" blurb said something about how I just create the digital template not the physical products, and I got a message today from a customer who read that and freaked out because she thought it meant that she wouldn't get any physical products, just a digital template - so she cancelled the order! GAH! Needless to say, I have re-worded it... AGAIN. Sigh.

Anyhow, thanks for reaching out, and I'm sorry if I come across as overly concerned about this stuff. It is good to know that you're not seeing a big problem with printing errors, so I guess I'll just assume it was a fluke!

[CrazyMermaid]

I didn't mean to send you into worry mode. I read posts like yours and wonder if I am missing something. I am pretty sensitive to trends and issues with my products and I am just not seeing the problems reported in some of the forum topics. I can't help but think if this was systemic, more people would be hearing from customers and posting here. BTW that was not meant as a criticism of you for posting, but just a thought.

[Mistica]

Just curious, were you able to match the record of purchase on your Royalty list? In other words...did they purchase it from Zazzle?

[Cat]

? Where else would they have purchased it from? One was a woman I had worked with a bunch on the design, so I felt really bad when they didn't turn out well. But yes, they're all legitimate purchases. Probably just a fluke that I got all the messages about print problems on the same day, but it did freak me out a bit.

[Mistica]

I have had people ask me to help with a design. They are so happy that they say it is "perfect"...and the latest    "I have tears in my eyes". 
I have had too many lately do the exact same thing...never buy it....after expressing great gratitude.
Others designers have had the same experience. The thief take a screenshot with it all filled in...and then go to Vista Print and who knows were else. One designer even found a video on how to get their wedding invites cheaper. Some lady was selling another designers work using Facebook IM. Another at a main chain..etc etc etc.

But..if saw the sale...then I guess I am just projecting my own bad experiences. 
Again...if you saw the sale was completed, then it is not theft as the cause.

[Cat]

Ha! I'm thinking it would take a unique combination of nerve and stupidity to illegally copy a design, have it printed elsewhere, and then complain to me on Zazzle about the print quality! But, you know, I'm getting to the point where nothing would surprise me! 😋

[Mistica]

It has taken me a few experiences to "get it". I have had some buy only one wedding invite. So, I am thinking for a sample...right? Now I wonder about things a lot more 🙂 

[Marcia]

Ok, a friend ordered grad announcements from me & received them today. She showed me photos – the edges were damaged on most of them & there were also some scrapes/damage on the front surface. And she said they look "cheap" compared to the grad announcements she ordered for her other daughter (also from me, from Zazzle) 3 years ago. She loved the quality of the original ones. I told her to call Zazzle on Monday & have them reprint them & send them out express, which they'll probably do.

I spent a lot of time retouching/cropping her bad quality photos, to make them presentable. I spent a lot of time helping her customize her card to exactly what she wanted. Now I'm afraid that Zazzle will comp her order and I'll lose not only the royalty, but the referral which I was lucky enough to get. Grrr....

Not to even mention that the whole thing just looks bad on me, even though I didn't produce the product! What is going on with quality control? (And this is just the order that I know about, because she's my friend.) I'm very frustrated.

Also, she mentioned UC Berkeley, because that's where her daughter's going. Zazzle added a ® after the name. I'm sure the school required that. Interesting.

[Cat]

Well that sucks. That was the same word that one of my customers used in her complaint, she said they looked "cheap" - like something she could have done on her printer at home.

Really hoping this is all just a coincidence. I mean now that customers have a direct channel to communicate with us, it stands to reason that we're gonna hear about printing problems where we probably never would have before. So maybe it's just a tiny percentage of orders where this happens, and it seems big because we're all now in a position to field customer complaints. 

Either way, I don't much like it.

[Connie]

Were they packaged in plastic? A few weeks ago I ordered samples of one of my foil cards (10) and the top couple had wear damage on the corners because they came right in the cardboard mailing envelope without plastic. I don't know whether it's a cost issue, or if they are trying to "save the environment," but wasting paper and ink due to reprints isn't going to help the environment any.

[Windy]

I had not realized until reading through all this just now, that perhaps these printing problems have always occurred in some small percentage. But it's only now that designers are aware about it because the platform is making customers think the designer is the entity to which they need to broach their concerns.

[Mistica]

That certainly makes sense. I just have not had a paper issue as of yet. I sell largely paper goods...but as you read...I have another huge pet peeve.... theft. 

[Marcia]

Well, unfortunately, this was my friend, who would have contacted me with or without chat. She texted me all the photos of her subpar result. <sigh> (Somehow, even, a part of me feels guilty for her bad result...)

[Mistica]

Yes...I get it. I designed a twin invite for my cousin. Not pleased I did not get the referral...and yes...she knows how to click my referral link from a "fresh" device. I wrote Z... no response. I will put it for sale...but I did not get my referral for doing a design from scratch.

[Cat]

@Marcia That's exactly how I would feel, even though it's clearly not your fault!

[Cat]

@Windy From where we sit it's really impossible to know if the problem is new or if the only thing that's changed is our awareness of it. Not sure which answer makes me feel worse!

[Connie]

I just ordered a bunch of samples of most of my invitations, so we'll see how the printing comes out. The last samples I ordered were fine. I noticed, though, that now Zazzle isn't using plastic to bag up the invitations (at least the foil ones), which has the potential to cause wear damage on the corners from the cardboard mailing envelope.

[Cat]

Please let us know how they turn out! I need to order some samples too, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

[shellifitz]

I really wish Zazzle shipping dept packaged shipments more carefully.  I have had issues with certain products caused by the careless packaging and rough handling of the delivery entity. 

[NHW]

I recently had a customer post a review and photo for wedding save the dates that arrived with 3 of them having the strange yellow and red shapes in the pic below that aren't in the original design. Thankfully it seems she ordered extras because she wasn't too upset about it. I emailed support about it, but they just told me to get her to contact them, which is obviously impossible because I don't have any way to contact her. This is worrisome though.

I think we need a way to flag reviews for things like quality issues, printing errors, orders not received, etc. so that support can reach out to the customer to resolve the issue. This customer didn't contact support because she clearly felt it wasn't worth the trouble, but she has posted a review that, while positive overall, includes the photo that might put off other customers.

[CrazyMermaid]

I have been assured by the forum moderators that that Zazzle does contact customers who write bad reviews to resolve the issue. 

[NHW]

That's great news! However, in this case, she left a 4-star review (with the title 'Mostly satisfied') so I doubt they'll see it. It's the only review for that item so it doesn't look good.