Art product manufacturers are not all created equal so one of the first steps in choosing one is a quality check. In my last post, I discussed the many considerations involved in trying to choose a manufacturer. I received the order I placed on January 4th today. In this post, we’ll check the whole process from beginning to end to see how they did.
Processing
Processing times vary depending on the products ordered. The products I ordered had different production times but the longest was nine business days so everything processes on the same timeframe. I received an email on the 8th day that the order had shipped. Check.
Shipping
Shipping USPS Priority Mail from NY to TX was estimated at 2-6 days on their site. When I received the package today I noticed the label said “Priority 2 day”. It obviously took longer than 2 days from the 14th to the 21st! I looked at the tracking information as I was waiting and noticed a few things. First, the date they said the package was shipped was actually just the day the label was made. Second, the package took another 3 business days to move from facility to facility until it got to the facility where it shipped from! Once it got to that facility and actually shipped it took 2 days to reach me. So it actually took a week from the time they said it was shipped until I received it. Not so great.
Note: I was a little concerned about shipping on USPS because their tracking isn’t great but this time I was able to track every step on the way.
Quality Check
The quality check was top notch. The heavy-duty plastic packaging arrived in perfect condition. Each item inside was sealed in another plastic envelope. I ordered 4 products and they all turned out beautifully! The pillow cover is a soft yet sturdy canvas type fabric. The image is perfect and the zipper and sewing were both well done. I also ordered a spiral, a journal notebook, and greeting cards. The papers and covers were all heavy-duty paper and packaged nicely. I wanted to see how the colors and printing turned out on a variety of products and I was not disappointed.
Customer Service
Customer service was the last thing I mentioned as part of the quality check process in my last post. I didn’t have any problems with this order at all but I have had to contact customer service 3 times while trying to upload products and get my store up and running. I am very disappointed in the customer service. They prefer to handle any questions via email with a 48 hour response time. That’s not good as far as I’m concerned. Then I had an issue I needed immediate help with so I called them. I got a message to send an email. I sent an email right away and got a quick response asking for more information. I sent them the information but they never contacted me again. That was about 2:00 pm yesterday. It’s over 30 hours later and still nothing. That is not acceptable.
My Pet Peeve is Poor Customer Service
My pet peeve is poor customer service. It seems like good customer service is hard to find but I can’t face the reality that their poor service will affect you and reflect on me. If my customer has an issue with an order & I can’t get a response from them I won’t be able to resolve the issue with the order. That would be too much aggravation for me or you. With that in mind, I’m revisiting the other company that I’ve also been working with.