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.
While this may sound obvious, these days good service is not so common. I think the reason is that good customer service for most consumer and b-to-b goods and services has all but evaporated. That may sound bad but it’s really the 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 all 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 around them.
What’s more likely to happen when you ask that question, is that you will find that most customers are so amazed that you actually want to work with them to solve their problem—and don’t be naive, problems are inevitable—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? Is it part of my train of thought or…I love this Rio Grande diesel locomotive at the Colorado Railroad Museum and have photographed it many times, This time, using a Canon EOS Rebel T4i’s swing out LCD screen allowed me to get a lower angle that I had never been able to do before, even though focus was slower to lock than when with the camera’s optical viewfinder. 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 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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