Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Customer Disservice

Recently I had a run-in with Cafepress’s customer service, and it was a surprisingly frustrating experience. I just wanted to share the love, so here’s my email exchange with them. My emails are in italics; theirs are bold.

Earlier today I tried to change my email address in my account profile, and now when I log in I receive the error message “The account could not be found, or the password does not match.” Neither my old email address nor my new one work.

Dear Jonathon,
I’d be happy to help you with that. Please provide the shop id, so I can take a closer look and provide you with assistance in logging in. I look forward to your response.

If there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best Regards,

Crystal R.

My shop id is arrantpedantry. Thanks.

Dear Jonathon,

We would be more than happy to assist you with this. However, according to our records there is no account corresponding with this email address. Please check all email addresses and spelling of them that may be associated with this account. I apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.

If there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best Regards,

Rebekah B.

As I said in my first email, that is exactly what my problem is. My account had originally been associated with [old email address], and then I tried to change it to [new email address]. Now I get an error message that there is no account associated with either my old email address or the new one, so I cannot log in at all. Is there any way to fix this?

Dear Jonathon,

I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pull up your CafePress.com account using either email address. Although, if you would please respond with your store id, I will gladly take a look into this to see what the account is registered under and send you a reset password link to that email address.

If there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best Regards,

Brittany C.

I already provided my store ID. It’s arrantpedantry.

Dear Jonathon,
I’m sorry to hear you are having troubles logging into your account. I have sent an email to the email address associated with the account in question that contains a link to reset the password. Once you click on the link, you will be prompted to create a new password for your account. Please check all email addresses you think may be associated with your account.

If there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best Regards,

Brittany C.

I still have not received the password reset email. I suspect that I mistyped my email address when I tried to change it in my account profile. If this is what happened, is there any way I can have the email address changed so that I can log in again?

Dear Jonathon,
We would be more than happy to reset your password. However, according to our records there is no account corresponding with this email address. The following is a link you can use if you would like to create a new CafePress.com account today.

https://www.cafepress.com/cp/members/join.aspx

If there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best Regards,

Shandra G

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t explicit enough up front about what the suspected problem was, but come on! I tell them that I have an account and that it won’t let me log in because it doesn’t recognize my address anymore, and all they do is insist that there’s no account matching my email address. Well, duh! I like how they at least offered to help me register a new account, even though at this point all I want do is log in to my old one, close the store, and move it somewhere else. Maybe I’ll try calling them, but I’m not very optimistic about that.

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Jonathon
Jonathon Owen

COMMENTS

4 thoughts on “Customer Disservice

    Author’s gravatar

    Wow. That’s an impressive inability to problem-solve. Good job, Cafepress.

    Author’s gravatar

    I thought I had tried all the likely typos in Cafepress’s password resetter thingy, but a new one occurred to me this morning, and lo and behold, it worked! I was able to log in and reset my email address to something cromulent.

    The email address I was trying to change it to had “galacticcactus” in it, and I accidentally inserted another “c” in the middle (at first I thought I had left one out). I guess that’s what I get for choosing one of the most difficult-to-type names in all the internet.

    Author’s gravatar

    I’ve noticed that the people with the skills necessary for good customer service have higher paying jobs. That leaves us customers stuck with talking to the zitty-faced 16-year-olds that don’t give a crap whether your problem is fixed or not but just want you to shut up and leave them alone. Or if we’re lucky we get to talk with the man in India who says his name is Robert (but it’s really Apu Nahasapeemapetalon).

    Author’s gravatar

    Sorry for the unhelpful help desk. I had the same problem with Etsy, but somehow they were able to help me. Too bad Cafe Press can’t be as helpful. Especially since I love their stuff.

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