Shutterfly’s Wink Brings Your Photos to Life

During December 2009, while playing the iPhone app, Words with Friends, it was not unusual to find an ad promoting another iPhone called Wink.

What is Wink?

Wink is a great iPhone and web app developed by the guys and gals of Shutterfly.

This photo app truly brings back your pictures into your life by not limiting itself to one single platform (it works both on the iPhone and on the web, and they are currently working on apps for other smartphones) and by playing well with your photo collections on Facebook, Flickr, and, of course, your own computer. The best part about Wink is that it offers a tangible reward within 2 minutes after you play it: a printed photostrip™ that you can mail to anybody anywhere in the world for just $2.50.

Screen Shots of Wink for the iPhone

Both the iPhone and web interfaces of the app are really intuitive, offering templates for printed photostrips™ with 3, 4 or 5 photos. Here are some screen shots of the iPhone app from AppShopper:

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Finally, here is a screen shot from Wink’s web interface:

What is Shutterfly’s Wink Doing Really Well

1. Wink offers a tangible, immediate, AFFORDABLE reward that is great for techies and non-techies alike.

This is not a secret: people want something in return for their work. Wink offers a printed photostrip™ using pictures from your phone, camera, and social networks like Facebook and Flickr. It takes you about 2 minutes to create one from scratch, and BAM! you get to see it right away. Eventually the work becomes play.

While photobooks go for $20 and up (not including shipping), I can mail anybody, anywhere in the world a nice printed photostrip™, now how cool is that?

Finally, forget complicated slideshows with fancy blows and whistles, a printed photostrip can be enjoyed as well by a 3-year old as by a 80-year old.

2. Wink trademarked its key component.

One sees this way too often: a startup has a great idea, spends a great deal of time and money to develop it, launches it…. and a giant crushes the startup by cloning its unprotected, un-patented idea.

Why do you think I’ve been including the trademark sign all along? This simple detail saves Wink a whole bunch of trouble.

3. Wink provides OUTSTANDING customer service.

Wink’s customer service rocks!
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It really does.
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Remember that I mentioned that I saw an ad for the Wink iPhone app on Words for Friends on December 2009?
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I downloaded the app because it had an offer for 3 free photostrips.
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After making my order over the holidays, I got a bit impatient about the status of my order because the iPhone app does not offer an order status update.  So I contacted their customer service at customerservice@cs.shutterfly.com and they responded my e-mail right away. What was so great about this customer service?

1. I am a non-paying customer: I didn’t pay for the iPhone app and I didn’t pay for the photo strips (remember I got 3 freebies!)
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2. The customer service e-mail is not a do-not-reply e-mail, which means customer service ACTUALLY wants to hear from you.
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I e-mailed Skyler at Wink’s customer service a total of 4 times and he was super cool, heplful, and friendly. By the way, he runs Wink’s Twitter account.
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(Note: the web interface does offer a status update but I found that out a couple days later)

Conclusion

Shutterfly’s Wink is a great app that truly brings your photos back into your life by a tangible, immediate, affordable reward that is trademarked and backed up top notch customer service. Try it for yourself at http://wink.shutterfly.com.

Author: Damian Davila

Ideas and concepts from Damian Davila, Ecuatoriano thriving in Hawaii. Pro marketer and blogger. Find him at @idaconcpts on Twitter.

2 thoughts on “Shutterfly’s Wink Brings Your Photos to Life”

  1. Great to see this Damian! The whole Wink team is excited about where the service is headed, and we’re glad you were able to try it out during the first few days of its launch.

    We’ve decided to include a free photostrip with every new download of the app, so hopefully others can try it out and have one sent anywhere in the world as well. Here it is in the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id338742405

    Of course, let us know if you have any other questions or feedback, and thanks again for trying us out.

    Cheers

    Skyler Rogers
    Wink, from Shutterfly

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