Managing Contacts - Lack of full disclosure 16 July 2012 Reviewer: John D from San Francisco Bay Area, USA
204 of 415 people found this review helpful
Quality of Sharing Features:
Range/Quality of Prints and Gifts:
Other Features:
Ease of Use / Navigation:
Ease of Joining / Registration:
Customer Support:
Value for Money:
Overall Star Rating:
With Kodak closing, needed replacement to upload/share family pictures. Shutterfly was not appealing as it will not allow users to customize subject lines and messages when sharing albums (cells greyed out with rather juvenile content already there). So, we are trying Phanfare. I decided to write this review after finding out that, to be able to upload a list of contacts rather than entering each one manually, you must purchase a higher priced version - not the newer $29 basic version. This is fine if your list of contacts is short and once you enter the info, it is stored. The real issue for me is the lack of disclosure. To learn of this limitation, I had to contact customer support - they were very responsive - because there is no clarification within the help section of the account. The product itself seems to work well. Just be prepared to spend more or do some typing/pasting up front to get your contact list in place. If I were rating this product on usability, I would undoubtedly give it several more stars.
One more thing that is not made clear and could be a waste of time if you try the 14-day Trail Period: the only way to get contacts added to your list is to actually send them an invitation to view an album (if you add their info without sending an invitation it is not saved). When you use the "14 day - Trial Period" offer, you are limited to 10 messages per day. That means if you decide to enter a contact list manually during the Trial Period you will have to both add only 10 each day AND actually send each one you add an invitation. Again, disclosure is really lacking here and can unnecessarily cause lots of extra time and frustration. Why aren't they simply either open/honest about these limits or just remove them and limit you to 14 days? Hard to say but definitely not very customer oriented!
In summary, I would recommend Phanfare to a friend.
