It’s the Kentucky Derby and it falls on May 2 this year. The Kentucky Derby may just be a horse race, but over the past 147 years, it has gained legions of fans, As one of America’s oldest sports, the Kentucky Derby is also known as the “Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports.”
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Success is hard by the yard, but is a cinch by the inch”—Don Feltner
I’ve often said that success is hard but failure is easy but you can stack the odds in your favor of success by providing outstanding customer service to your photography clients.
It’s All About Business
While it may sound obvious, these days good customer service is not common. I think the reason is that customer service for most consumer and b-to-b goods and services has all but evaporated by over reliance on voice mail, elimination of actual humans answering phones and just plain underpaid and overworked staff . All that may sound bad but it’s really good news for you. The best way to improve your studio’s customer service is to turn your last personal customer experience around 180 degrees and use that knowledge to improve how you treat your customers.
That’s not to say this will be easy: Nobody likes angry customers and a verbally abusive client can be difficult for some photographers to deal with. When faced with such situations the only thing you can do is ask them in a calm voice: “What would you like me to do?” At that point, if they insist on being an idiot, there’s nothing more you can do for them. One of the realities of business life is that you will quickly discover that some individuals* find it impossible to go through life without making everything difficult for themselves and all those around them.
What’s more likely to happen when you ask that question, is that you will find that most customers are so amazed you actually want to work with them to solve their problem–and don’t be naive, some problems are inevitable, even if you are not the cause–that they will not only go on to spend more money with you but will become life-long customers.
How I Made this Photograph: What does this photograph have to do with today’s post? This image was made for my unpublished review of the Canon EOS Rebel T4i that I originally wrote for a print edition of Shutterbug magazine. It was unpublished because the editor sat on the review for so long–although the story was filed when the camera was still brand new–that Canon replaced that model with the newer EOS Rebel T5! Let’s not even talk about what I got paid or didn’t get paid for the original review. As for the photograph itself: The lens used was Tamron’s SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD (at 54mm) with an exposure of 1/500 sec at f/8 and ISO 200.
One irrefutable business truth is that the manner in which customer complaints are handled is the mark of a company that has respect for their customers and themselves and not the tactics of a fly-by-night, take-the-money-and-run operation that only cares about short term profits. Remember that you started your studio because of your passion for photography, don’t let it evaporate because of the failure to ask one simple question.
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