Poor Customer Service from Shopify - My feedback

[SquirmDotCa]

I would like to take this opportunity to provide Shopify with some feedback if I may. I hope I'm posting this in the right area. May the moderators please spare this humble peasants soul (a.k.a "Shopify's paying customer") if I posted this in the wrong area.

I would like to take this opportunity to express both my frustration & disappointment with the Shopify platform & the Shopify experience. It's not a user-friendly interface & the cart looks atrocious. But most importantly, the lack of support is unbelievable! Online forums? Are you kidding me?! I can only hope that I haven't found the toll-free Customer Service contact phone number, and that the mistake is mine.

I really do hope I'm in the wrong here, because anytime I need support for my website I'm reduced to these aggravating online forums. And I can only pray that some "expert" can (and will) answer my question. And heaven forbid if nobody answers my questions. Well....I guess I'm SOL, eh? I'll just watch the days turns to months before I have an issue resolved. That's a great return on my investment (losing time, which we all know equates to money $$$).

I now appreciate why Shopify doesn't issue any form of refund(s). They know that once you're signed on, you're locked in.

Dear Shopify,

I am disgusted by how you treat your paying customers. Admittedly, I agreed to using your platform, with the understanding that you would not issue me any form of refund(s) if I was dissatisfied. I trusted you. Mistake #1. After you received your full payment, I received subpar "Customer Service". And I'll be completely honest here; it is completely unacceptable. Mistake #2.

As a now, early-retired gentleman who worked approximately 25 years for various Fortune 500 North American conglomerates in various call centres (based here in Ontario, Canada), I can honestly say that if I treated my bosses customers the way you have treated me (a paying customer), I would have been fired in a New York minute.

I've worked as Tech Support, Customer Service & I was promoted to Call Centre Manger. In my years providing Customer Service to my bosses clients, no matter the company I worked for (whether it was Bell Mobility, Shaw Direct, Motorola, IBM Canada, HP Canada, etc.) there was one consistent rule that always proved to be true. And here it is :

If you don't learn to take care of your customer(s), someone else will.

I will swallow my pride & lose my COSTLY investment of three years. And while that may not mean much to you billionaires, to a struggling middle-class Canadian such as myself, it makes a big difference. Sucks to be me right now, as I am now faced with recreating my website on my previous platform (Wix.com). The ONLY reason I chose Shopify was for your eCommerce platform & your supposed "award winning" Customer Service.

My next step(s) will be to contact you via e-mail & my credit card company, to ensure no more further charges will be made. Then I will be filing a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

Goodbye, and good riddance.

[Jiozx]

I absolutely agree. Their live chat is awful, their customer support is awful, the concept of “Shopify Experts” is awful, this forum is more or less useless, everything about Shopify is awful. Minimal updates, the free themes are crap, the paid themes are too expensive, “Shopify Plus” costs a lung every month, everything about Shopify screams I’m going to lose money.

[SquirmDotCa]

I decided to contact a lawyer today about filing a Class Action Lawsuit against them. I can guarantee you that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of upset customers who are not receiving the product and/or service(s) they paid for.

I have attempted to reach out to them for the past two months, but the online forum is plagued with technical issues. I was shocked that this post (my original post) was even published. It took me over an hour of attempting to post this message. Error after error, after bloody error!!!!!

I'm not dropping this. Even if I have to lose more money during this entire debacle, I'm not dropping it. Totally unacceptable. I'll have to wait and see what the lawyers say.

[Jiozx]

@SquirmDotCa I agree! Shopify is a sh*thouse of a company. I often get minimal help from their live chat. Most of the time I fix my problems before they even reply back.

[aaron12347]

Shopify is a criminal organization at this point. Customer service is egregious and clearly used to divert any and all payment/cancellation inquiries. Class action lawsuit inbound.

[tinygoatcoffee]

Please add me to your list of people who are looking to sue Shopify.  Here's the "mention" I have been posting to the Shopify facebook page every day (and I'll continue to post) >>>

Lost $311 in yearly "pay-in-advance" plan fees simply because Shopify chooses not to process my refund. They say processing my refund "goes against their policy". I'm sorry but $311 is A LOT of money for Shopify to just keep after I have completely closed my store and moved my hosting to a different platform. The only reason I closed my Shopify store was due to the fact that Shopify stopped offering phone support. So now... because Shopify is negligent and refuses to offer phone support, I am paying for this? And what about the hundreds of hours I spent building our Shopify website in the first place? Do I ever get any of those hours back? Shopify could care less about what I LOST when they stopped offering phone support.

[magdamolina]

Please let me know if you do file a class action! My store is fully paid for a year, and got deactivated for an unknown reason (email said "could not verify payment information"). I've been contacting them every couple of days to get my store back online and I've been dealing with this for a MONTH! Still nothing. It's absolutely maddening.

[TailSaver]

Their chat suppot knows less than I do about how to do stuff on Shopify.  They look up thei answers, then send you a screenshot of what you could have looked up yourself.   Then, after an hour of wasted time they say "I'll have an expert look into this and email you".  OMG it's so terrible!!!

[Jeffrey_Davis_J]

This is exactly what has been happening to us. We are having issues with the amount of tax being collected and they keep issuing refunds to our customers. Hours online chatting with people who promise to pass it on to “tax experts”. No one responds. Such a waste of time that could/should be devoted to our business. 

[Dotflakes]

Exactly 

[lo123]

AGREED! they. have too much money to NOT have better support - whether email/ chat/ or phone!

[SOP-TECH]

I totally agree. Their chat support people don't have  knowledge on basic questions and you have to wait 5 minutes for one question to be answered and most of the time they just send you a link to do your research to answer your questions.  I sat down for 1 hour and never received clear answer to my questions. I spend so much money on fees and Shopify don't provide phone support. It is disappointing!

[CornerstoneMeat]

Sadly the live chat has been totally useless. I have yet to receive any sign of life from the other side. Are they bots? Updates to their codes keeps corrupting my checkout and shutting me down 😞 

[Jiozx]

@CornerstoneMeat they're not BOTs but some of them definitely act like BOTs

[casey-customs]

Not sure what your question even is 😕 Shopify support can't do everything for you, least of all things that developers are charging for.

[SquirmDotCa]

"Not sure what your question even is 😕"

That's because I wasn't posting a question. I was providing feedback. That was (literally) stated in the Subject field.

"Shopify support can't do everything for you,". I wouldn't dare dream of having such ludicrous goals of them doing "everything" for me.

How about one thing though? How about a support system that doesn't generate a multitude of system errors, preventing the end user from even posting about their problem online? 

Let's start there.

[TailSaver]

Shopify support was incredible in 2018- 2021. The folks answering the phones were great! Now there's no phone calls and chat isnt as good... but on top of that the chat support doesnt know the platform.    I went from telling everybody to use shopify, now I woudnt tell anyody to do that unless they were very tech savy going into it. 

[Jeffrey_Davis_J]

You are 100% correct. We are at a loss as to what to do next. It’s hard to pick up and move and they know it. Ugh! 

[Shay]

Hi @SquirmDotCa 

I sincerely appreciate you reaching out to share your feedback and your experience with our platform. I am sorry to hear that it has not been up to the standard we expect all merchants to have when interacting with our support team. We strive to always provide world class service.

You noted in your post that you have received some very poor service recently and it sounds like you had some troubles getting connected with our live support channels as well. I want to hopefully help with both of those things. 

Do you have an open ticket or a recent ticket that you can share with me here? While I am not able to actively investigate merchant accounts, I do have the ability to flag a ticket with our support leads to review and assist when needed. If you can please share any ticket numbers you have that need to be reviewed, I can share that with the appropriate team. 

If you want to share some of your issues or concerns that you are trying to get resolved here in the community forums, I am happy to look into that and ensure you get the best next steps for a solution as well. 

All our merchants should always have access to our authenticated and live support channels. That includes email, live chat, and the ability to schedule a call back (so long as the wait times aren't too high). We don't have a direct phone support number anymore and all live support requests need to be initiated through our Help Center.

You can see in the screenshot below where to find the option to contact our support, and the "Contact Support > 1. Login" step should show to let you know that you are in the contact support workflow as well. There are 4 steps in total. 

Once you login to your store account you will want to follow the prompts to choose the topic/issue you need support with. If you need help with billing then you would choose "Accounts > Billing" from the available options provided. Choose the topic closest to your issues so that the appropriate support options can be made available. On the final step (Step 4) you will be provided a list of related Help Center documents as well as all available live support options at the bottom of the page. 

If for any reason you are still having issues getting connected with our authenticated support team, please reply back to your most recent billing email or email from Shopify directly to initiate an email ticket. This will ensure you are connected with our team for further troubleshooting. 

Please let me know how I can help further. 

[SquirmDotCa]

I have followed these steps numerous times. More than half of the time, your website generates error messages, preventing me from reaching out to anyone for help.

How can I post my problem when the site acts so erratically? It took me over an hour on your website to get the information to submit!

It would almost appear that it's a server issue because all my fields were filled out correctly. I did not change anything when attempting to submit my post, yet at different times it would generate different errors arch as : incorrect HTML formatting, missing information, etc.

Several attempts later, same information provided (nothing changed!) and I was lucky enough to have it go through. 

Lucky me.

[Shay]

Thank you for that additional information! 

The HTML error is usually caused when you have originally typed out the message in an alternate word processor and copied it over or there is a broken HTML tag when using italics/bold/underline etc. 

You can check the HTML formatting of your messages by using this HTML function in the expanded toolbar on the forums here: 

If you are able to share some screenshots of the error messages that would definitely help me to troubleshoot this with you. 

Are you seeing similar errors when trying to contact our live support through the Help Center? If yes, can you please let me know what internet browser you are using, what version it is, and what operating system you are using? Do the issues persist in incognito mode in your browser or on your mobile device? 

It is absolutely not great to feel like you are not able to get the support you need when you need it! I want to ensure that we get you successfully connected 100% of the time. 

[SquirmDotCa]

I wish I could say my Shopify experience was positive, but it was just awful. Beginning to end. 

I signed up for a 3 year term with Shopify, which expires on June 15/2025. I've only recouped 44.60899176% (net) of my investment in Shopify's 3 year term.

My Domain Registrar contacted me to renew my domain (Squirm.ca), but my experience with Shopify has been so awful that I've decided not to renew my domain name, close up shop for good & absorb the loss. 

I do intend on letting my customers know why I'm closing up shop (because of my dissatisfaction with Shopify). I just hope that they don't take down my page for expressing my honest opinion of their "support". I'm saddened to close up shop, as I've been doing it since 2006. But this level of support has been a nightmare. 👎

[TailSaver]

I know! They are hiring people who while very polite don't know the platfor well.  In addition chat isnt the best way to communicate about your technical issues... the phone was really great... especially with the incredible support they had in 2018-2021.   Garbage now.  

[Bluelakefashion]

Hi, I am having the same experience. I’m very close to declaring bankruptcy because of Shopify. If you are filing a lawsuit, I would like to be included. You can contact me. Suzy_b_z@hotmsil.com

[MG2023]

No, Squirmdotca is correct and you are about to lose another customer as well.

Your support is garbage. Wasted 30 minutes of my time - of the hour allotted to me - just to find out that the theme you display , CRAFT THEME, is incapable of having the home page look like the home page that is the sample store. Can't do it. Yet you display it as though it can be set up that way. So why have the sample theme there and then waste days of my time - and my expert designers time - to boot.  To navigate through those pages only to not get the support is rediculous at best. Big Commerce I call and they actually pick up. And they know their themes. Rally bad into to Shopify and such a waste of my time.

To be super super specific we spent days attempting to create the 5 photo collage that is on the home page of the sample store of the CRAFT THEME. Can't do it. Told by shopify to add another collage to the space but - that does not work. Trying to recreate the 5 photos and the layout. Shopify then says what we want to do is too "extreme" for the Theme. ?? Even my design expert even tried to modify the code. But there is no room to modify it. Craft also has a video on the home page...? So you have a Theme, that non-one at shopify understands, and is unable to present itself as it is displayed in your sample store for that Theme. And to get someone in a chat, or any other way, that is able to communicate without it taking 5 minutes for each sentence...is impossible and beyond frustrating and an incredible waste, waste, waste of time.

[Myyawnna]

Can you help Escalade my case also? I am tired of waiting for no help!!! I pay monthly for a subscription and I expect SOMEBODY to help when I need it, been running circles for 2 Months and I’m sick and tired of it my ticket number is 41341018.

[mklipich]

I am about to drop your service after only a few days with Shopify.  In the countless discussions with your  Support Advisors has been absolutely horrible.  Advisors not even understanding what i was requesting and giving me solutions that left me wondering how they are an employee.  All of the advisors have chatted with, did not help me at all.  Some of their suggestions where not even close to what I said and would have created serious consequences.  For example this quote from an advisor would have closed me down "07:35 Ark (Support Advisor): May we know if you wanted to remove all the design from your website ?" WHAT??? This isn't what I requested and I showed him a screen shoot of my request was about a line running through each page.

Now I can't "Transfer Store Ownership" from the Admin Panel (Settings/Users and Permissions)

Ticket Number 42692541.  It has an escalated status.  I have wasted so much time and now I have had enough of your BS.  You keep telling me to be patient.  I have run out of patience I  need to move on from a company who lacks customer service.  I have only been with you guys a few days and have wasted my time (money).  I like the platform but your service sucks.  You got 24 hours to fix my issue before I close my store.  I WOULD NEVER EVER RECOMMEND YOUR SERVICE!

[DisgraceShopif]

Shopify Customer Service and Safety Team is so stupid and ridiculous. !!
They stop my store but still charging me, and insist cannot help with refund

The safety team banned my store without letting me know what is going on. 
The email response is always just template.
The unprofessional one in Safety Team called Raoul

[Liztt]

Suddenly, I'm not able to receive the 2FA verification from Shopify, so i can not login my account. My phone is ok. I tried to contact them 3 times in live chat, and still don't know when they support me to login. They say just wait the team response. It was 3 days until now. Really tired about it

[Shay]

Hi @Liztt 

Thank you for sharing your experience here. I understand you are waiting for our account integrity team to assist you with regaining access to your account. 

Do you have your recovery codes available? If yes, you can use one of those to regain account access. I also recommend setting up 2FA using an authenticator app on your mobile phone as well. 

Our standard support does not have the ability to disable security features for your account. This is to ensure your sensitive data and your store are kept safe. Our account team will be happy to resolve this for you, but as this is a long weekend (in North America) the processing time for a request like this might take a bit longer. 

[EPam]

The same thing happened to me.  After days of setting up my store, I received an email that my account had been terminated for violation of Acceptable Use Policy and no one can tell what my violation was.  Chat was absolutely no help.  No one has yet to tell me why.  Glad I learned of their poor support before l launched my store.   Moving to a different platform.

[whyiswill]

This exact thing is happening to me now.  Three days of building the site, then suddenly no access due to AUP violation which is unfathomable. No explanation provided. More than a week with no response from the risk assessment team. I am questioning if Shopify is the platform for me. This is just the beginning and the customer service is not at all what I expected from this brand. I can only imagine the frustration I would experience if an issue arises once the site is live. I’m actively researching other options. This is extremely disappointing. 

[MuttAndMoggy]

So glad I found this forum - it has compounded what I have been thinking about shopify over the last couple of months.  They are not interested in the small shops anymore now they have gained larger commercial clients.  I've been building my store since June, some delays due to my own lack of time but finally when ready to test for launch in November I find shopify have incorrect UK postcode data in their system and my local delivery based on postcode area will not work. 

We have been going around in circles for weeks - my suggestion they correct their data has been ignored, they have tried to blame it on a disabled (and now removed) delivery app (one of their suggested ones!) but it still doesn't work with app removed, finally a few days before Christmas they told me it was resolved and sent screenshots to prove it but the screenshots showed they had only tested the one area that was already working!  I don't think this is just incompetence, I really believe this is being deliberately fobbed off.  I've lost 2 critical months of pre Christmas sales - they have offered 2 months credit on my fees but that barely scratches the surface of lost revenue and that's without considering the hours of my time wasted on this platform. 

I have repeatedly asked to escalate the issue to a formal complaint to management but been told the "team" (whoever these shady people are?) deals with their own complaints!  What an absolute farce.  As far as I can tell they still haven't tried the simple basic solution of correcting their own postcode data to reflect actual UK postcodes not the made up ones they have.  They are incapable of considering that something within shopify might need correcting.  Thank goodness I didn't pay a year up front as unless they come up with a solution in the next couple of days I will be quitting and finding an alternative platform that does actually want to help its customers succeed.  

[Applelime]

I totally agree.  The chat support is so bad that I am in shock that any company can give such bad service and continue.  We are moving out of shopify as soon as possible.  Just hired a developer to move us out.  After spending thousands of dollars creating a shopify store and customizing it now we have to move as shopify has let us down so badly.  Feel cheated.

Cannot wait to get the new site and move on without the terrible shopify support.  

Totally unacceptable.  

[Myyawnna]

Awww man. I have been having issues with Shopify the last 2 months!!! Not being able to get my payouts and nobody trying to assist me so I can get my payouts but of course they are collecting their money from me! Customer service is terrible! Going over to a network I know works from now on because besides wasted money and time I can govern get the money sitting in my store so I can buy more products. I am very angry. They can make sure they get their money every month but when a customer needs assistance it’s literally nobody there to assist and help. 

[casey-customs]

Unfortunately in an effort to serve you better, most of support is probably going to get fired in favour of AI chatbots. Don't bother emailing or chatting in to complain - you're only complaining to people whose jobs are already in jeopardy. They have no ability to forward your complaints on to the people who are currently threatening their livelihood. Those might be the people to explain your difficulties to instead.

[TailSaver]

I am guessing that folks are omplaining here in the hopes that the top brass at shopify will understand that the model they had in 2018-2020 lead to happy clients who would refer friends to shopify, and that the new CHAT only model isnt good.  The poor folks helping us on chat are doing their best but obviously shopify hasnt given them the same tools and/or training as was given to te phone support of 2018 and 2019 and even 2020.   Theres only been 1 in 20 this past year that bitzed through my chatted issue/ problem, sent me the needed pictures to follow along with, and problem was solved.  The rest were escalated after an hour of back and forth pictures and links...that I'd already read.... and I never got a resolution.   

I am wondering though, could it be that all of shopify users should hire a shopify expert that we can call on (an pay0 when we need help?   It might be a good solution because the shopify platform has been absolutely flawless in execution and customer experience, and cool free apps.  Julie

[TailSaver]

I am wondering, could it be that all of us shopify users should hire a shopify expert that we can call on (and pay) when we need help?   It might be a good solution because the shopify platform has been absolutely flawless in execution and customer experience, and I don't want to leave it.   

[casey-customs]

Maybe so! Incidentally there are many Shopify Experts out there who provide exactly those kinds of services. Including myself, although I don't take phone calls at this time 😉

[aaron12347]

Absolutely egregious service and without a doubt criminal. Class-action lawsuit inbound. No one should use this platform.

[mherzog100]

They are horrible.  I tried to switch bank accounts, it locked deposits to my account.  FOR 3 MONTHS they have held my money, MY MONEY, and it never ever ever gets resolved.  I am done with this horrible useless site.  I am filing a complaint with the BBB and looking into taking them to small claims court to get my money.  For a two minute fix.  They are a joke.  Do not use them.

[eazyvacuuumz]

I've been trying to fix my payment setup process, I already messed it up once, but nobody told me you can only reset it one time. So I'm stuck with a store that can't use payment methods. The one person that actually said you could only do it once is trying to make me fill a bunch of forms, when I know they can reset it again with a couple clicks. I've tried talking to them and nobody is answering me back, its been 5 days and still nobody has said anything. I'm tired of shopify support, and shopify being deadbeats. All I want is my issue to be fixed without signing any extra forms. Hopefully shopify's lazy ass will see this and fix it, if not I would like to know a way to talk to a manager or somebody at a higher ranking than these nobody support advisors.

[jjjjj1]

THIS IS NEXT LEVEL RIDICULOUS, THERE IS NO CUSTOMER SERVICE, IF YOU HAVE A ISSUE THERE IS NO NUMBER TO CALL, THE LIVE CHAT SUCKS, THEY CANT HELP YOU, THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WANT AND THEY CANT SOLVE ISSUES  - ILL SAY EVERYONE TO STAY AWAY FROM SHOPIFY AND GO TO OTHER COMPETITORS WITH NORMAL CUSTOMER SERVICE COMMUNICATIONS 

[jjjjj1]

i'm switching to WOOCOMMERCE, they do have normal customer service, not like shopify where u can only chat with AI

[MuttAndMoggy]

Did you manage to talk to a manager or higher rank?  I've been told I cannot make a formal complaint to management because "the team" handle their own complaints.  An already poor service policing itself!

[2Sisters1]

Not at all. There is zero resolution only frustration and time wasted. I
gave up.

[Organikick]

Friend it’s been nearly two years later and your post still speaks volumes of truth as to how Shopify handles their customer service. So much is wrong about this company it’s no wonder she is being overtaken by a newer generation of developers and more nimble tech companies. Hopefully some of them get customer service right.

[2Sisters1]

Still experiencing this ridiculous problem. As everyone else has said, they rarely even understand a question, if is is "escalated" there is a fictitious "ticket" created, which goes nowhere. There will be no resolution and we as merchants just suffer or figure it out. This lack of support isn't justifying the annual fee for me anymore. Disgusting 

[jadedheart32]

I am extremely upset with Shopify's customer service, never in all my years have I been treated with disrespect. I am not one to ever write negatively about a company nor get upset, in fact I'm quite patient and professional. My domain was frozen after switching to a different store and deactivating it. I opened a case 49809068 and they said they would escalate the issue without a given timeline. It has been nearly three weeks now, I asked for proof that their team is actively working on the issue, otherwise I would like to escalate and speak to a supervisor. Not soon after, they immediately closed my case! This is super unprofessional Shopify, I am so disappointed. I'm still paying my monthly fees while not being able to sell my products and waiting for your team to fix this issue. And now that you've closed the case nobody is working on my issue and I may have to go through the process again and wait ANOTHER 3 weeks or more if I open another one.

[magdamolina]

I couldn't agree more, thank you for sharing.

I've been with them as a paying customer for 11 years, and they used to be great. You could always reach support on the phone and everyone was super kind and helpful. Then they got too big and stopped caring about their customers (as often happens in the business world)...

Going through an incredibly frustrating situation right now and no one is helping, even though I've contacted their "Support" several times.

I've been locked out of my account and my store was taken offline, even though I PAID FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR (and have 5 months left). I've already filed a complaint with the BBB, and I am completely willing to take legal action if I have to.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

I hope people read these forums before deciding to do business with them...