I Dealt with Customer Service - An Overall Pleasant Experience
Written: Dec 01 '04 (Updated Dec 02 '04)
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I get boatloads of mail-order catalogs delivered to my home each Christmas (I have the prior owners of our house to thank for that). I was flipping through the catalog from Personal Creations when I spied the PERFECT gift for my husband's family. My husband's only surviving grandmother had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had been given a month to live. We had visited and I had taken some really great pictures with her -- ones where everyone in the picture is actually looking at the camera and smiling. The best picture of the bunch featured my son, my husband, my father-in-law, and the grandmother (a 4-generations picture). Personal Creations was offering a wooden frame that said "Four Generations Of ..." and you could insert the family name. It was perfect, and I ordered it hoping it would arrive in time for Thanksgiving so I could present it to them over the holidays. Unfortunately for me, I bungled the order a bit, and had to work with the Customer Services department to get it straightened out. To find out what ultimately happened, you'll have to read on...
What is PersonalCreations.com?
Personal Creations is a store that specializes in personalized gifts. They feature a lot of seasonal items, picture frames, photo gifts, and the like. They have hundreds of "exclusive" items that you cannot find on other similar sites.
The Website:
The Personal Creations site is a fairly typical shopping-cart style application. The overall layout is quite professional looking and attractive.
There is a handy-dandy menu down the side to help you narrow down your gift shopping a bit. The main categories (which are also visible along the top of the page) are "Seasonal Celebrations", "Special Occasions", "Family and Friends", "Specialty Shops", and "Sales and Clearance". Each main category is further broken down into sub-categories (for example, under "Specialty Shops" the sub-categories are "Photo Gifts", "Stationery", "Jewelry & Accessories", and "Furniture & Decor").
Once you select a sub-category, you are presented with thumbnail images of the items in that category. Clicking on the thumbnail will take you to the full description and ordering options. If there are choices to be made concerning the item (such as a shirt that comes in a variety of colors) you must select which color/option you want before adding the item to your cart. Personalization must also be added (and verified) before adding the item to your cart. On photo gifts (which require the use of your photographs to make the items), you can upload your images online.
At the top of every page is the search feature, which allows searching by keyword or item number (if you already have a catalog).
Ordering/Shipping:
As I said above, the site is a fairly typical "shopping cart" application -- you simply add the items to your cart and "checkout" when your shopping is complete. Some items will give you the additional options of adding personalized greeting cards or shipping to a different address on the item-detail page before you add the item to your shopping cart (many sites wait until checkout for that information).
One thing I was surprised to see on the final page of the checkout-process was a $2.00 personalization fee. It is a 1 time (per order) fee, regardless of how many items are in your order (but since I only ordered 1 item I did end up feeling a bit ripped off).
Via the website, the accepted methods of payment are Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. You can also send your order via snail-mail and pay by check or money order, or place credit card orders via telephone.
The shipping options are:
Regular (7-10 business days)
Expedited (add $4 for 3-4 business days)
2nd Day (add $12 for 3 business days - 1 to personalize and 2 to ship)
Canadian
International
The regular rates are based upon the monetary value of your entire order. I'm sure that the prices are subject to change, so you should probably check the Personal Creations site for the latest figures. As of the date of this review, shipping for orders up to $14.99 was $5.99, then a dollar or two is added to the shipping charge at every $20 increment (orders $150 and over are charged $17.99).
When shipping to multiple addresses, a $3.95 charge will be added for each additional address.
Some items require more time to personalize than others (up to 4 weeks) - this should be noted on the item's detail page. Such items cannot be expedited or 2nd-Day shipped.
You should receive a confirmation e-mail when your order is received, as well as a shipping confirmation when your order is shipped.
Additional Information:
The Personal Creations return policy states that if your order is not 100% free from defects you may return it (in new condition and in its original packaging) for a credit, exchange, or full refund. All returns or exchanges must be made within 60 days of your receipt of the item(s). Personalized items cannot be returned for any reasons other than defects in materials or workmanship (that basically means that if YOU made a misspelling in your personalization request, they cannot be held responsible).
If you need to cancel or change your order, you must contact customer service by 2:00pm CST on the same day you placed your order (I'm assuming that if you ordered it at night you have until 2:00 the next day - but that's just me making an assumption).
You can checkout without creating an account. Membership benefits include online order tracking and order history, faster checkout, and optional e-mail notification of special promotions. You can also use your account to create gift idea lists, create gift reminders, and keep an address book.
You can find promotional coupon codes for Personal Creations available online (I used one on my order to get 20% off).
Sales Tax is added to all orders shipped to Illinois.
Our Experience:
As I mentioned, the "Four Generations" frame was simply perfect for a very special picture I had recently taken, so I promptly ordered it, hoping it would arrive in time for Thanksgiving. It wasn't until I had completed my order that I saw my mistake... There were actually quite a few "options" on the frame that I purchased. While I knew (from my catalog) that you could choose the little poem that ran down the side of the frame, and that you could choose between a 3½x5 or a 5x7, what I did not see was that the frame could either say "Three Generations" or "Four Generations". Although I had been very careful to get the right poem and the correct dimensions, I had mistakenly picked the "Three Generations" frame, rather than the "Four Generations" one I actually needed. Mortified, I immediately went back in to see if I could cancel my order online. Unfortunately there was no way to do it from the account history page, so I turned to customer service.
Here's where I began to worry. I tend to check Epinions before purchasing items or ordering online, and I had seen some unfavorable reviews from people who had dealt with customer service in the past. Now it was my turn.
Fortunately for me, everything went smoothly. I used the "Contact Us" form with a subject of "Change to Order", explained my situation, and requested that they either change it to the right frame or simply cancel the order so I could re-do it properly. Although I was sweating the 2:00 cut-off time for requesting changes, I did receive a response e-mail the next day stating that my request had been noted and the change to my order made. I did still worry a bit about whether or not it was changed correctly until I received my order. Thankfully it was perfect. I couldn't be happier with the item - it was exactly what I was expecting.
I have noticed some oddities in their search functionality. When browsing "new baby" gifts (since I am about to have one of those), I found a really cute name-frame that came in pink or blue, however when I clicked the link it only gave the pink option (not appropriate for my baby boy). I performed a search specifically for the frame and was presented with the same item a number of different ways - one of which allowed me to choose between pink and blue. I think that was part of my "Generations" frame problem too - when I placed my order I was under the item described as a "Four Generations" frame, so I didn't notice that the drop-down options also included the "Three Generations" frames. If you are just browsing (as opposed to having a catalog and entering an item number directly), try searching for your item a few different ways to see if they have it listed multiple times with different options.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I was very pleased with my experiences at Personal Creations. The "perfect" frame (along with our 4-generations photograph) touched the hearts of a lot of family members as we got together for Thanksgiving, and among many other things I'm thankful for, I'm glad that my son's great-grandmother got to see it and appreciate the sentiment behind both the frame and picture before it was too late (she passed away the Sunday after Thanksgiving).
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Personalized Photo Frame
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About the Author
Location: Tennessee
Reviews written: 306
Trusted by: 197 members
About Me: Don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you're crunchy and taste good with ketchup
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