I Contacted Printful Customer Support: Here’s How It Went

After countless reviews of ecommerce platforms (and the tools that go with them), I’ve interacted with enough customer support teams to consider myself an expert. I can identify when a phone rep is using a script, or if a company simply wants you to read their documentation instead of sending you to an agent (usually, so they can save time and money).

So, now it’s time to turn my attention to the Printful customer support team. 

In the past, I’ve used Printful for merchandise printing and for selling print-on-demand (POD) products. I’ve also reviewed the platform several times, watching it grow into a simple POD provider with 50 or so products to a design and dropshipping powerhouse with over 300 products. 

In my other reviews, I’ve explained the user-friendliness of Printful support, and how their documentation has detailed tutorials for every skill level.

Today, however, I plan to actually contact Printful customer support, through email, live chat, and the Printful app. 

Once I’m done with my test, you’ll understand if Printful lives up to their promise of high-quality customer support. This way, you’ll know if they will resolve issues about things like returns, printing issues, and slow shipping. 

Ecommerce merchants deserve a real review of customer support. Not just someone who repeats marketing jargon (24/7 customer support, rapid response times, friendly agents…). So, let’s get started as I contact the Printful customer support team and report back to you. 

Printful’s Direct Customer Support Channels

I define “direct” customer support channels as phone numbers, email addresses, and chat boxes. These channels are accessible for store owners to send messages and receive responses. However, the quality of the “direct” customer support often depends on the individual who responds to these messages.

In my experience with direct customer support channels, you may encounter various types of “agents”, including:

1. An informed human being who is well-versed about the product and the company they represent
2. An outsourced human who relies on a script or a bot to respond; these individuals are often outsourced and possess limited brand knowledge
3. An AI bot, pre-set message, or recording with basic information on the business and its products, but with limited capacity to assist beyond its programmed data or script
4. A help center disguised as a contact page, which prompts you to enter a query, but then directs you to sift through documentation, instead of connecting you with a human representative

As you might have guessed, these are listed in order of preference. As I engage with and evaluate the Printful customer support channels, I hope to see more interactions with well-trained people than with bots and scripted workers.

Having said that, here are the direct support channels available from Printful: 

1. Email
2. Live chat 
3. Mobile app chat
4. Social media chat

You’ll notice that a phone line isn’t on the list. That’s strike one. 

Is It Easy to Access These Channels? 

This is an important question, since so many brands try to force customers down documentation rabbit holes instead of offering links to email and live chat right from the start. 

Thankfully, Printful is not one of those companies. 

From its public website, I was able to go right to the “Contact” page and find options to start a chat, open the help center, and send an email. Sure, the help center documentation is suggested, but it’s not falsely presented as the only way to get customer support. 

Contacting Printful customer support while logged into the dashboard is just as simple. There’s a “Help” tab in the main menu. This brings up a page with buttons to live chat, send in an email, open the help center, or even visit social channels. 

Overall, I’m very pleased with the accessibility of the support channels. 

Availability of the Printful Customer Support Team

We know you can contact Printful through live chat and email, but at what time? Am I limited to regular business hours? 

Printful claims it has 24/7 support. If you read further down in this article, however, that’s not really the case. They seem to have changed their 24/7 policy for live chat. Instead, you can contact them during business hours. The only problem is that they don’t list those business hours.

Email support is 24/7. Yet, the reply times I experienced tell a different story. Sure, their email inbox is technically open all the time, but I had to wait until the next day when I sent an email during the afternoon hours. 

On the plus side, Printful encourages merchants to contact them in whatever language they want. There’s no option to pick a language, but apparently Printful is confident enough in its translation tools to offer full conversations in different languages. 

Global support is sure to come in handy for many merchants in the POD space. 

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go ahead contact Printful to see how they respond. 

My Test of Printful’s Customer Support

It’s clear that Printful focuses on providing support through email and live chat. They also state that you can use the Printful mobile app and social media channels to receive support. 

I’ll be trying them all! Keep reading to see what happened, and my analysis of each. 

Here’s What Happened When I Used Printful’s Live Chat Support

My live chat began in the Printful dashboard. 

I was initially irked that the help center was first presented as a solution. “That’s not live chat,” I thought. My frustration was eased, though, when I noticed the easily accessible “Live Chat Now” button at the bottom. 

My first few questions were about custom branding materials and packaging inserts. I went with this topic since I figured it was slightly trickier than the usual questions asked of them. 

I enjoyed how they told me my position in the queue. Within about 1 minute, I was moved from position 6 to position 1. 

Our chat began. But then… I received this message: 

Well, so much for 24/7 live chat support. 

I wrote that off as a technical error, even though the lack of live chat support persisted for quite some time. That got me thinking, maybe it’s not a technical error. Perhaps live chat isn’t available 24/7? 

With some quick research, a Reddit thread confirmed my suspicions. 

Printful doesn’t have 24/7 live chat. That’s fine, but I’ve struggled to find any mention of this change on their website, or any hours for which the live chat is available. I sent my message at 4 PM CST. That’s a rather early time to stop working, so perhaps they’re on Pacific Time? 

Anyway, once I was able to access live chat (the next day), they helped out quite a bit. 

They responded in about 3 minutes, after I began the live chat around 3PM. The customer support representative welcomed me and provided a quick, in-depth answer to my question about pack-ins. 

They even followed it up with some tips for sending your pack-ins to multiple warehouses, since it’s imposible to know where the products will ship from. 

After several questions from me, I established that the person behind this chat was well-trained, personable, and knowledgeable enough to respond quickly. 

Here’s what I gathered from the chat: 

• Printful’s live chat is a speedy way to get help. I tested this a few times and saw around a 30 second to 5 minute response period.
• Contrary to what’s stated on the Printful website, its live chat is not available 24/7. They changed this at some point, sticking to regular business hours instead. 
• The representative was lively, enthusiastic, and pleasant all around. 
• The conversation flowed smoothly, and it didn’t seem like any bots or scripts were being used. 
• I could understand everything that was being said. 
• The knowledge of the rep was apparent. It seemed like Printful had trained professionals dealing with their users. I can’t be certain, but I suspect an in-house team, or at least a respectable agency. 

Here’s What Happened When I Used Printful’s Email Support

For contacting Printful through email, I decided to ask about a topic that may require some further digging: 

”Does embroidered merchandise affect the production/shipping time when compared to a DTG print? And are there different levels of embroidery that have their own prices? Finally, I heard that the embroidery process from Printful was recently improved. Does that mean more thread colors? Can you tell me more about it?” 

I received an email about 18 hours later. 

Here’s what I gathered from my email conversation: 

• The reply took a while to receive. It was at least 18 hours after my initial email. 
• The response was detailed, full of information, and addressing just about everything I crammed into my original question. 
• The person wrote with enthusiasm, and made me feel like I had someone I could trust with the platform. 
• I’m sure they use some sort of canned messaging system, but the emails didn’t sound too much like a bot or preset message. 

Here’s What Happened When I Used Printful’s Mobile App Support

Moving forward, I went to the Printful app, logged into my account, and was able to quickly find the help center area. Unfortunately, I was met with the sam “Offline” message regarding live chat. 

Once it was brought back online (during regular business hours), I started to realize that the chat support through the Printful mobile app is the exact same channel as the dashboard chat. 

So, you will receive the same quality of support. It is nice, however, to see that mobile app users aren’t restricted from accessing a quick customer support option. 

I went with different questions, all of which the mobile chat rep had no problem answering. She provided links to documentation to finish off each reply, but always began her assistance with an actual response. Far too often we see customer support reps say “just read this article,” without even attempting to answer the question with their own words. Printful’s mobile chat felt like a real conversation, with someone who knew what they were talking about. 

What’s also enjoyable about the live chat options is that the messaging gets saved to your account, so you can refer to your conversations in case you forget something. 

Here’s What Happened When I Used Printful’s “Social” Support

Printful recommends social channels as a viable means of customer support, so I gave it a whirl with Facebook Messenger. My question related to the 5 panel camper hat from Printful. I wanted to see if a live chat rep could provide detailed information about shipping for one specific product. 

They replied that same night, roughly 6 hours later. This interaction was the closest thing to an automation I saw from Printful, where they sent me straight to a help center article. Perhaps I’d receive stronger support during the day. 

Response Times

Response times from Printful varied based on the channel used. It’s almost always easier to get a response through live chat than it is through email, as long as you begin the live chat during normal business hours. 

Here was my experience with the response times from Printful: 

• Live chat: 1-5 minutes; 30 seconds during another try; overnight if you miss the live chat hours
• Email: Overnight
• Mobile app: Minutes; overnight if you miss the live chat hours
• Social media: Several hours; overnight if you miss the live chat hours

Overall, the response times seemed respectable, as long as you send a message earlier in the day. Afternoon/evening messages may yield a reply the next day. 

Quality of Printful Support

The quality of Printful’s customer support has been nothing short of exceptional for me. Whether through live chat, email, or social media, their team has consistently provided me with high-quality, knowledgeable assistance. They were patient, professional, and made sure I fully understood the solution before ending our sessions. I also enjoyed how some step-by-step solutions were provided, instead of simply sending me a link to their knowledgebase. 

The social media rep sent a lackluster response, but I felt confident about the quality of the other channels. 

As mentioned earlier, I assume that Printful has an in-house customer support team. Although the response times are slower during non-business hours, I definitely prefer knowledgeable people over guaranteed customer support at 3 AM. And really, we all know that most companies marketing 24/7 support are simply sending you to a customer support center in a far off land. I’m glad Printful doesn’t seem to have this approach. 

One huge downside of Printful’s customer support, however, is its lack of phone support. Printful has thousands of merchants running high-traffic online stores; they should have the option to speak with a person over the phone.

Analyzing Printful’s Online Resources

It's time to delve into the constant fixtures of Printful's customer support: its online resources. These include tutorials, videos, blog posts, forums, and documentation that users can explore online to gain knowledge about Printful.

Printful’s Help Center Documentation

Printful's help center documentation was highly comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics to assist users. These topics spanned from general information about the platform and its features to more specific guides on product creation, order fulfillment, and integration with various platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Etsy. The help center also provided resources on branding services, billing, returns, and other essential aspects of running an online store using Printful.

I wouldn’t say the documentation was media-rich, but they provide quick, easy to read articles that anyone can understand. 

Other Resources: Blog, Guides, Academy

While exploring, I discovered an onslaught of online resources from Printful. The Printful blog is a comprehensive resource that offers an impressive amount of information on various topics, from ecommerce tips to design inspiration and marketing strategies. The articles are well-written and digestible, often including helpful visuals and practical examples. 

Printful's “guides” (different from their blog) provide an in-depth look at specific topics, and serve as a valuable tool for those seeking business-building tutorials. They cover a wide range of subjects, such as Etsy selling, Facebook shop, and more. These guides are particularly useful for users who want to delve deeper into a particular aspect of their business. 

The Printful Academy is an excellent learning platform that offers completely free online courses. These courses are well-structured and cover various topics, from ecommerce basics to more specific topics like creating a fitness collection. The video format makes the content easy to grasp. 

Pros and Cons of Printful Customer Support

Going through the documentation and speaking with Printful customer support reps gave me a lot to think about. Below, I’ll sum it all up with pros and cons! 

My Overall Experience and Final Verdict on Printful Customer Support

Here are my final, simplified thoughts on Printful customer support: 

• Phone support: Non-existant
• Email support: Excellent quality; slow response (faster during business hours)
• Live chat support: Excellent quality; fast response during business hours
• Social and mobile app support: Same as the live chat support
• Documentation and online resources: Excellent

I sincerely hope this analysis has given you a greater understanding of Printful's customer support (I had fun doing it). Should you have any personal experiences or views about their services or support, I urge you to share them in the comments section below.