Overwhelmed with Customers wanting me to Modify a Design AFTER they've Placed the Order

[Cat]

Hi Guys, I'm feeling whelmed with the number of customers who contact me AFTER placing an order with the assumption that I can modify something about the design for them. I feel like I end up writing a novel trying to explain that I can't change their order but if they want to cancel it and send me a share link so I can see their customization I'd be happy to help them. It seems to happen several times a day recently.

My issue is less about the hassle on my end, and more that this leads to unhappy customers. I'm wondering if anybody has found a good way to deal with this particular issue.

I've got this as my "thanks for your purchase blurb"

Thanks for your order! Please Note: Zazzle does not allow creators to cancel, modify, or even see customer orders. For assistance with shipping or order modification contact the Customer Care team.

Maybe I should re-word that, or maybe it needs to go in the "in cart" message instead? 

I haven't purchased many things, but it doesn't seem like there's any sort of a warning notice to the customer that their order cannot be modified after it's placed - am I wrong in that?

Anyhow, I'm trying not to be too grumpy with customers who don't understand, but it's SUPER frustrating! 

Just wondering if y'all have the same issues or if maybe I need to do something different to somehow make it clear to customers that I just make templates. If anybody has any great ideas on how to deal with this I'd love to hear them.

[Marcia]

Yeah, I just answered one right before I jumped on the forum now. This is my stock answer – I have a few versions in a document & modify accordingly:

"Hi XXXX, First of all, thank you for your purchase. However, I'm only the independent designer. Zazzle is the one who fulfills the orders, making them and sending them out. (I can't even see how you've personalized your card – they won't let me.) This is something that customer service can help you with, unfortunately not me. Here is their contact info: 1-888-8ZAZZLE (1-888-892-9953)    Phone hours:  Mon - Fri: 9AM - 5PM PT (12PM - 8PM ET) Hope this helps!"

I aimed for making this generic, yet friendly. Who knows if I succeeded haha?

I swear, every time I see the red chat button, I get a sinking feeling...I'm grateful for the sales but sick of dealing with this on a regular basis.

[Cat]

Ha! I know what you mean about that sinking feeling. Every time I log on, I whisper to myself "please no red dot, please no red dot, please no red dot...."

Maybe I shouldn't even try to parse these sorts of questions, and just pass them off to customer support. I just seem to get tons of things like "Can you please check to make sure everything is centered?" or this evening's gem from someone who managed to delete the table numbers on their seating chart - it was something on the order of, "I just placed an order for a seating chart, but I don't see any table numbers on the preview, can you please check to make sure it's OK?"

Anyhow, do you know if Customer support can actually help them with that sort of thing - like if they've botched the customization or something? Or will support just send them back to me?

[Marcia]

I do have it in my mind that someone once mentioned to me that customer service can make minor fixes before it's ready to ship. But unfortunately I don't remember the source of that, at all.

[Cat]

@Emma Do you happen to know if Customer Support can help a customer with a tweak to a design on an order they're already placed? Like should I just send them to support instead of trying to explain the whole mess to them, or would I just be giving them the runaround by doing that?

[Emma · Accepted solution]

Hi @Cat , 

Thanks for your inquiry, and please know that I have passed your feedback originally posted here to our Team. 

To answer your question, once an order has been placed, our Customer Service Team cannot make any adjustments to the design. The processing of orders is too fast to override before they enter the production stream, and generally speaking, it would be too risky in that if a customer requests changes that they cannot proof themselves in real-time, it runs the risk of the product received in-hand not meeting their desires, if their requests were in any way vague or miscommunicated. 

For that reason, so that customers can be sure they will receive exactly what they want, they can cancel the order at any time up until it has queued for shipment. So in short, it would be best to simply advise that orders cannot be modified once submitted, and to contact our Customer Service Team who can assist them with the process of cancelling and re-ordering (which for the most part, is a very quick process). 

I hope this helps 🙂

- Emma 🌻

[Cat]

Thanks so much for clarifying, @Emma 

So basically, they need to cancel their order, and the only thing sending them to support does is to assist them in cancelling if they can't figure it out on their own. Very helpful info!

[Sandra-]

Yes! This happens so often. My standard answer is along the lines of

Hi (name), thanks so much for choosing my design and for your order. Much appreciated! Unfortunately I can’t personally help with this as I’m an independent designer and not employed by Zazzle. As such I’m not allowed access to your order in any way which is now in the hands of Zazzle who handle all the production, printing and shipping. You could cancel that order and do a new order with the correct details, otherwise please contact Zazzle customer service via this link https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us to ask their advice. Sorry I can’t help you with this myself.

Ah yes,  I too can relate to the sinking feeling every time the red dot appears. And I always feel I have to answer as soon as I see it, no matter what time of day or night, not wanting to keep anyone waiting for a reply too long, and can’t concentrate on anything else until I do. Luckily having stock replies to the questions that pop up time and time again with tweaks here and there is a huge help. 

And I too would love to know @Emma if Zazzle can amend customer orders once placed. Thank you! 

[Cat]

I really like your blurb! Short, sweet, and to the point!

[samack]

Hi Cat!  It seems that Zazzle has extended the time for the customer to cancel their orders. So another option is to explain that as an independent designer you cannot see their orders but they can check to see if they can still cancel the order and make the necessary changes to the order and then thank them for understanding.  I just had this happen yesterday and the bride was happy with that option.   

[LMGildersleeve]

Keep it simple. Use a template as Marcia has done. Don't tell them Zazzle can fix anything! Let customer service handle that stuff. It's not your job and you don't want to mislead the customer with the wrong answer.

I do this with every inquiry that is not design related.

[CreativeLeahG]

I have this daily too and I don't have a problem with them at all. I simply say I can't access customer orders and they need to cancel and start again. That is all I say and they nearly never say anything else other than 'thanks'.

Meanwhile I have recently created a FAQS page on one of my websites to refer customers to that covers all the most frequently asked questions.

[CrazyMermaid]

This has gotten so much worse after they promoted us to "Creators." I just say that despite what Zazzle calls me I am only an artist that deigns templates. Once the templates are customized it is Zazzle who processes the orders, makes the products and ships them. So they need to contact ZAZZLE customer service. No I don't tell them how to do this. This explanation almost always works and they just thank me for explaining.

I don't use a cut and paste because I do tailor it a bit to the person. I try to keep it cordial and supportive because a customer is a customer and sometimes this does lead to more sales. 

[Connie]

I answer similar, but I have Zazzle's customer service page bookmarked, so I can quickly link to that. I don't want to leave them hanging if they can't figure out how to contact Zazzle's customer service.

[Phrosne_Ras_Des]

Hi Everyone. I also get this messages every other day and other weird ones also. I have built my own personalised responses to answer most of these kinds of queries. In the end we are the designer (creators), we can't fix the issues or fast track deliveries 😉 I alway respond quickly sending them to customer support. Once you have these messages saved or easy to access it's quick and easy to answer the same message again and again and again... I don't mind. I just hope they are able to stop the order before it's made. (i.e. Save The Date - with no date or wrong date) - I am sure from the messages we receive Zazzle could write quite a funny book.

[KeegansCreation]

I have had these a few times, thankfully not on the daily. I just babbled apologetically which is not the best way to handle it. So thank you everybody for some better ideas on how to handle this.

[Cat]

Thanks guys. I have a bunch of cut and paste answers, but this particular situation always throws me because I sorta can help them, if they're willing to cancel their order and give me access to their design. Maybe I'm just trying to explain too much at once (that's a HUGE problem for me in general - the downside to being a touch typist I suppose) and I should just simplify my response to say the order cannot be modified. 

Anyhow, in the meantime, I've modified my "in cart" message so it now reads:

Thanks so much! I'm happy to help with any matching items you might need. NOTE: Orders cannot be modified once placed. If you need help with a design, please contact me BEFORE placing your order.

My confidence that people will actually read it is low, but hey, a girl can dream, right? 😊

[CreativeLeahG]

I have messages like this and feedback suggests they do read them. BUT at the stage of ordering they're unaware of their error and they will forget this message by the time they notice it. 

You're doing a mammoth task helping your customers, you go above and beyond. Cut yourself some slack and simply let them know to cancel... start again and if you don't wish to help for any reason refer them to the live designer by copying them the link.

[Cat]

Awwww, thanks so much for your kind words. Perhaps I just need to lose the "my job is to make everything right" mentality in general! 

[CrazyMermaid]

There you go. That will take care of the overwhelm! 

[CreativeLeahG]

You definitely do. Having a prewritten place with your responses to direct them will also help. 

[CrazyMermaid]

Sometimes I think that your messages might be too long. I never type more than 3 lines or so. Just answer the narrow question they ask. Which is usually that they have to contact Zazzle customer service or delete their order and start over. (I have never asked any customer for access to their design.) Of course if there is a problem with the template, I am more than happy to make a new template and give them the link.

[Cat]

I KNOW my answers are too long! It's real work for me to be brief, and brief answers always seem incredibly rude to me - but it's something I'm absolutely working on.

[CreativeLeahG]

One thing to remember re these queries is that the customer already knows YOU are NOT the person they should be asking! Thus you don't need to feel obliged to jump through hoops over this.

The answer is simple ... cancel and redo. 

Meanwhile

[shellifitz]

Cat, sounds like you need to stop being so nice.  lol   I would send them a canned message that I am not a Zazzle employee with the CS phone number and then not answer any other message from them. 

[Cat]

Ha! "... sounds like you need to stop being so nice." And there you have the entire story of my life!!! 😝

You'll be happy to know, that in the time since I started this thread, I got three more requests for custom changes after the order was placed and I simply said that I can't see their order, I just make templates, and they'll have to either cancel and start over or contact customer service. OK... on one I did include a new template for them with the wording they requested... baby steps! 😋

[CrazyMermaid]

There you go! So proud of you. It is almost midnight here and I just had to tell 3 customers in a row that they needed to speak with Zazzle customer service. 

[CreativeLeahG]

well done 🙂
I started out jumping through hoops and sometimes I still do, but I often regret it when I've spent a good hour or more and don't get so much as a thank you, and of course they don't order OR they come back with new, different requests and forget about their original request which I spent time on. I now refer them mainly to Zazzle's free live designer.

[shellifitz]

I hate to say it but this is exactly why I freaked out so hard when chat was first launched.  I knew it would become a burden on the designers and it isn't fair because we are not guaranteed extra pay for it.  It is just another way for Zazzle to save money by having free services provided by the cash cow.   

[Cat]

I plead the 5th!

[shellifitz]

moo   😂

[Deb]

Short and Sweet :

You will need to cancel your order ..fix the error on a new invitation and reorder. There is no way anyone other than yourself can make changes to your order. Thank you for choosing my design.