A trip to Las Vegas in February isn’t just about WPPI anymore. It’s about adding new building blocks to your business and some of them are outside WPPI programming. For two years I’ve started every marketing presentation with the same statement.

Just because the media says it’s going to be a bad year, doesn’t mean it has to be!

That’s a big part of the GoingPro theme and Bootcamp. We started the project because there are so many aspiring photographers interested in going pro and missing the boat on the right way to get started. Frustrated, they jump into the market with lousy quality and low-ball pricing. Instead of building a business on a solid foundation, they try and build it on the word “professional”, having no understanding of the importance of how to sustain a business.

Well, it’s been two years since we started the GoingPro, which originally was just a book with Random House. Now it’s a blog with an estimated 50,000 followers and sixty-four podcasts, resulting in 120-150,000 downloads a month. Last but not least, it’s our second Bootcamp, an all day event helping you with everything, but photography.

George missed the last GoingPro Bootcamp, but we didn’t and neither did a 100+ aspiring and working professional photographers. He’s got another chance and so do you! With the combination of Michele Celentano, Scott Bourne and me we’ll help you with ideas on marketing, pricing, building your business, insurance, social media, community involvement and local networking, just to name a few. Most important of all, we’ll help you figure out how to promote yourself and your work so you can get your second customer.

Anybody can get their first customer. The trick of building a solid business is getting your second customer and even better, getting the first customer to come back a second time. You know how to focus your camera. Well, we’re going to help you focus on concepts like quality, value, integrity and the ability to exceed customer expectations. Those are the key attributes of any business that brings customers back!

And speaking of exceeding expectations – that’s just what we intend to do on February 18. It’s only $99 for the day. So, whether you’re just getting ready to take the plunge into the pro side of the business or you’ve been out there for a few years and need some help – we intend to exceed your expectations. 

See you in Vegas! Signing up for GoingPro Bootcamp is just a click away!

Twenty minutes into the service she came back with a question, showing me exactly what the mechanic had found. A few minutes later she gave me an update and also offered me shuttle service if I wanted to head home and return later when the car was completed. The experience of getting a car serviced is never at the top of the fun list for any of us, but every step of the way, they’ve exceeded my expectations. 

And there’s the point this morning. Don’t accept delivering what you promised to your clients – shoot to deliver more and exceed their expectations! There are so many ways you can surprise them with a level of service they never expected.  While it’s not always easy, it’s really very simplistic. You just need to make them feel like they’re your most important client!

I found three great quotes making the point about customer service better than I can:

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.
Mahatma Gandhi

Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Damon Richards

Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.
Chip Bell, Founder Chip Bell 

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.  Mahatma Gandhi

If I’ve learned nothing else in our recent move, it’s that all customer service centers are not created equal!  Attempting to protest a wrong charge on my Visa with Barclay Bank, sent me to the Phillipines with a series of incorrect information and some of the worst customer service skills I’ve ever encountered. Trying to work with Comcast on television, Internet and phone, while being held hostage by a technician who never returns calls, has created enough material for a sequel to the ‘96 movie The Cable Guy.  Last but not least is trying to work with Atlas, who moved us, which to date is second only in pain to having my gall bladder out last year!

So, convinced that customer service is pretty much dead in America, what are you doing to build your own Customer Service Center for your photography business and give every customer a terrific experience?  Calling it a “center” might be a little out there for a small business, but whatever you call it, it’s important to think of Customer Service as a separate entity.  It’s no different than thinking about digital workflow and the steps you take from capture to production.

Here’s an easy to work list of points in making yourself a customer service power house:

1. Give people easy ways to contact you. Personally I hate the template email forms on so many websites. You’ll get a lot better response if you give people a phone number to call. Think of how good you feel when talking to a live body in any customer service experience.
2. Return calls and email quickly. When you are contacted are you fast on the response time? The faster you get back to a customer, whether the issue is good or bad, the better the experience for the customer and the more they’ll talk about it.
3. Answer the questions you’re asked. Don’t side-step tough questions. You’ll be better off to be honest and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer for you, but give me an hour and I’ll call you back.” Again, the issue is being timely in your response.
4. Give people solutions. If you’ve got a challenge with a customer, give them solutions and if you have staff, empower them to make decisions when resolving problems. There’s nothing worse than having things drag on because the people you’re talking to don’t have the power to resolve the problem.
5. Empathize with the customer when there’s a complaint. It’s as simple as saying, “I understand how you feel. Let’s see if we can fix the problem.”
6. Smile when you’re talking on the phone. Seriously, just because somebody can’t see your face doesn’t mean they can’t tell you’re rolling your eyes and glaring at them while on the phone. Smile as you’re talking and the muscles in your face change along with the tone of your voice. Yeah, I’m serious – it can make a huge difference.
7. Don’t over-apologize. Network Solutions is the worst, apologizing for everything that’s wrong with their email system, but never fixing anything. It winds up being nothing more than partonizing and their sincerity is completely missed.
8. Be proactive! There’s nothing wrong with doing a follow-up call a week later. Plus, it’s always more fun playing offense than defense.

The real bottom line is to develop a sensitivity to your customers that rivals Nordstroms. Great customer service can absolutely separate you from your competition and help you build your business with some of the best marketing of all…word of mouth!

Here’s the scenario: I contacted them after we bought the house and purchased a standard home protection package. Shame on me for not asking them to clarify the offer. However, at the time it seemed like a terrific deal, which included $850 of free goods related to our home system for fire, emergency and police protection. I’ll take full blame for not asking the right questions a month before moving into the house, but what transpired after the fact is my issue.

First, they tried to up-sell me to $4200 of charges to make our home second only to Fort Knox in security. Second, came the concern that our existing system was too old to be modified and therefore we’d need to go completely with their new system. (It was no surprise when they found a way to get the old system working.) Third, was the final straw, a three year contract. Keep in mind all of this started as a $99 offer with a minimal monthly fee!

So, here’s the lesson for your photography business:

Clearly state your promotional offers! Don’t jack up your normal prices to make the special promotion more attractive.

Take responsibility for your programs. We had two technicians here and they were both terrific, but they had no responsibility for the decision process and many of my questions were met with, “They won’t do that!”  If you made a mistake, just own it – don’t pass the buck onto your lab, album company or another vendor.

Learn to read your client. It couldn’t have been more obvious that I was frustrated and reaching the boiling point throughout the process. Once a customer has smoke coming out of his ears, you can forget about trying to find a reasonable outcome.

Be in tune with your competition and your market.During the installation the telemarketers were like vultures and I received a minimum of ten calls from other companies all pitching me on security deals. I went into the process happy with my selection of ADT, but the constant barrage of calls throughout the process made me even more skeptical of what I was being sold.

Deliver on time! I realize there’s no way to know how long some jobs take, but with ADT, after six hours I finally pulled the plug and told them to come back the next day. At the very least they should have staffed accordingly. All total it was probably ten hours of work. Even a short communication on the front end would have alerted me to the fact that this was an all day job.

Solve problems! This is the grand-daddy of them all. NEVER tell a client there’s nothing you can do! There’s always something you can do and always something you can offer to let the client know their business is important to you.

Follow the growth and reputation of any great company and you’ll always find good customer service in their building blocks. It’s at the very core of great companies like Nordstroms, L.L. Bean and Lands End.  Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon said it all,

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”

This morning I’m unable to access my email and once again I spoke to a customer service rep who was as polite as can be, but could do absolutely nothing to resolve the issue. In fact, he suggested a different way to access my account, which worked for him. He had that arrogant tone like the IT Guy from Saturday Night Live skits years ago, essentially saying by his tone, “Hey dummy, just do it the way I told you and you’ll get into the account!”

I was appreciative, though skeptical – and got into the account his way. Oops – he never checked to see if he could actually access any of the email!  So, I challenged him once more and instead of just saying, “I’m sorry, I hadn’t checked that!” he got arrogant again, “Why would I open your personal email?”

So, knowing how I love to try and squeeze at least one drop of rational thought out of situations like this, let’s look at the Network Solutions system and see if we can come up with some ideas to help you with your own customer service model.

• To be in business you need a product that works! Network Solutions doesn’t have that, but now apply it to your business model. This is about the quality of your images and presentation on line or in proof form with your accounts. Don’t show your clients anything that’s less than perfect!  As a photographer, the Network Solutions model would suggest it’s okay to provide a customer with out of focus, over and under-exposed images with a comment like, “We’ll get them cleaned up later, but at least you can see them when I promised!”
• When you do have a complaint, show a little empathy and then fix the problem. The Network Solutions model suggests you should apologize every time an angry customer describes any aspect of the problem. In the end in comes off as incredibly condescending and patronizing. I finally said to the rep, “Do NOT apologize one more time. It’s not your personal fault. Just tell me when it’s going to be fixed!”
• Get your facts right when talking to your customers. The Network Solutions rep told me the system was down for routine maintenance, which starts at 11:30 a.m. EST.  He had no comment when I reminded him that it was 5:30 a.m. EST six hours earlier.
• If you don’t know the answer to a question, just say so. Don’t make things up to sound intelligent. The best answer of all is honesty.
• Don’t pitch the customer on new ideas before you’ve resolved the old issues. This point is really a sidebar issue:  I had to wait fifteen minutes to talk to somebody on the help line, but when I called sales and hit the prompts to suggest I was a new potential customer I got through immediately. The Sales Department, selling an obviously inferior product, was open for business and ready to sell immediately, but the already established customer is forced to wait for help.  I understand the model here, after all, I’ve already taken the bait!
• I will give the rep credit for one good thing he did – he never responded to my reference to their technical group as a collection of jackass developers!

On that note, the real challenge with Network Solutions and their Customer Service Department is something you can easily avoid if you just don’t compromise on quality – quality in your images, quality in your relationships, quality in your promises and quality in the vendors you choose to work with.

The good news about my email challenges this morning?  They gave me a terrific subject to write about and the proof one more time over the importance of delivering what you promise!

Happy Friday everybody – if you’re trying to contact me via email you might want to wait until later in the day! Have a great weekend!

A week or so later he posted the story below on facebook. I know not everybody follows Bruce on facebook and I wanted to share it with you this morning. So, I fired off a quick note to him and he gave me the thumbs up to share it with you here.

Every day I hear professional photographers complaining about “Uncle Harry” having the same gear and stealing their business. Whenever I can I’ll visit the photographer’s site and check out the galleries to see if the images are different from what Uncle Harry, a well intending amateur, could produce.   Bruce’s post this morning is a fitting reminder of how to make yourself different!

In that time I had built an impeccable reputation and, except for lab, frame or album company delays, a few reshoots and some minor errors, I had never personally failed my clients in a big way.

Until recently.

Due to my philosophy of family commitment, we are closed from December 24th until January 2nd. I don’t photograph clients between Christmas and New Years. Yeah, I know, I’m missing some great $$.

This year, I made an exception for New Years Day. A small simple home wedding with just 6 people in attendance. Easy minimum $1000 sale and pre-payment, no biggee, 1 hour of time, good money.

Somehow, whether by computer or human error, that appointment got moved off my schedule and onto one of my employees.

It had been over two months since I had talked to the client (they booked me over the phone and never came in), and my memory cells aren’t as sharp as they once were. I completely forgot about the session.

Imagine my horror when, listening to my answering machine 4 days later, I heard the bride desperately asking where I was.

What could I do (besides feel absolutely horrible)? I called them immediately while they were on their honeymoon in Hawaii, offering not only a quick refund of the $1000, but a $1000 credit given to them for another session.

They said the refund was all they wanted. They understand mistakes happen. Goodbye.

I don’t like goodbyes.

I could let it go, but it troubled my soul deeply to have failed so big like this.

I like resolution, redemption, hope. I sent a card and months later, no response. With one last college try, I sent another card pouring out my heart, telling them I really wanted to try to make amends and would they please accept a $1000 credit from me for another session?

The good news? I photographed them this week. Yes, the bride was greatly disappointed 3 months ago, but she said as she left, ” I really appreciate your commitment to making it right”.

If people recognize our sincerity and we truly step up to the plate then yes, redemption is a possibility. Despite our failures, there can be hope. Bruce Berg

As a professional photographer one of the things that separates you from everybody else who owns a camera is your dedication to the customer. It’s a huge responsibility and I know many of us would have given up after the second “no thanks”, but it really bothered Bruce. He took it one more step. It’s that one more step that demonstrates what putting your heart into your business really means.

The second thing to think about is humility. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned veteran, everybody makes mistakes. I make them, you make them and Bruce makes them. We can’t do any more than be the best we can be and along the way everybody stumbles and falls.

Sorry, but I can’t remember who gets credit for saying the following: “It’s not about how far you fall, but how high you bounce when you get up!”

Well, it’s holiday time and most of you are going to encounter at least one tough situation requiring a little more than average finesse.  If you handle it right, you can diffuse the situation quickly, but handle it wrong and it’ll live with you the rest of the year, if not forever!  Here are some easy suggestions to help keep you out of trouble:

1. No matter what the challenge, address it quickly.  I wrote yesterday about not returning calls promptly. Well, it’s the same thing. The longer you wait to respond, the tougher it gets to resolve.
2. Don’t pass the buck and don’t lie to your customers!
3. Don’t use email to resolve anything! Email is only good for a wrap-up summary once the situation is resolved. Remember, you can diffuse just about any situation with a phone call and opening line of, “I understand you’re not happy with ____. How can I help?”  (I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth reminding everybody again!)
4. Listen-listen-listen! Once your unhappy client starts complaining – just let them go until they run out of gas. Don’t assume you understand the problem until you’ve completely heard them out. I had a problem yesterday that was absolutely the result of the hotel manager I wrote to NOT listening to what I was asking. The result wound up completely embarrassing for her when she simply passed the buck referring me to another department, only to have the general manager tell her to listen to what I was asking.
5. Solve problems quickly – the longer you let things go the more difficult they are to resolve.

The biggest secret is just to be accessible. You’ve got to give people a way to respond. Here’s where I disagree with a number of you guys and the way you collect information on your websites in the “contact us” category. My numbers might be off, but it seems like at least one out of every three sites I visit only give customers an email form to fill out and never a phone number.

Think about how you feel when contacting any company. Don’t you feel better when you finally speak with a live body?  And don’t you feel even better when that person has the power to actually solve your problem during the same phone call? 

Photography is a word of mouth business.  When you exceed expectations with a client they tell dozens of other people, who are all potential customers.  When you solve a problem quickly you can get the same results – all positive, because you didn’t bury your head in the sand.

Leo Buscaglia wrote this years ago and it while it might seem a stretch to some of you in applying it to your business, it’s the perfect philosophy for building a strong customer service foundation:

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the power to turn a life around.”

Another assumption most people make is based on not calling people back when they call you. It’s human nature to draw negative assumptions.  We all do it and never consider the person may be busy or never got the message. We believe they don’t want to talk to us, have something to hide, know why we’re calling, etc.

Only one simple point today – knowing that it’s human nature to reach negative conclusions, it’s really important to return your calls, especially to potential clients. Last spring Gene Ho did a guest blog talking about the system he’s built for an almost instant response to every email or voicemail he gets from a potential client.  Often he’s responded before most photographers have even opened the original email. 

Great customer service is about accessibility and exceeding customer expectations. Your goal with every client is to provide not only great products, but a service standard that stops your competitors cold and reminds every bride why you’re a professional. 

Can you hear me now?

I spent all of my life in this industry on the corporate side until starting my own business in 2009.  I love the fact that there are no company politics when you’re on your own, although Molly the Wonder Dog seems to be trying to weasel a better parking spot!  But as an industry, photography is no different than the medical world or for that matter retail, manufacturing, research, service etc.  Everything depends on good communications.  You can’t expect anyone to read your mind and even more important, if you don’t keep in touch, people think there’s something wrong.   We’ve been conditioned to interpret silence as being a negative, when in reality we might just need the time to think something through.

So, on this Saturday morning when we should be out shopping for the ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner, there’s a really simple point.  Don’t be a Verizon “Can you hear me now?” kind of participant.  You’ve seen the commercial where what’s really a dead cell phone is interpreted as negative. Keep in touch with the people who support your business the most and look at every day as another opportunity to build your business and most important of all – communicate with your customers.  Even the ones who might not be happy!

And from one of my favorites, Zig Ziglar: Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.

This blog is a prime example of as much as things change they stay the same!  The principles of business, while the vehicles to deliver the message might be different, the message itself is still the same.  So everybody, meet Pop, Skip’s Dad, with some great foundation tips to help you build your business.

Yesterday was my 88^th birthday.  I have been happily retired for many years, and unemployed for at least 15 of those. Now, out of the blue, comes our son, Skip, threatening me with employment! The pay he considers adequate is $.02 per word. So gathering together, my 50+ years in business experience, I thought this would be a good time to put my two cents in.

I am not a plagiarist, but I must quote my father who spent the last months of his life writing advice to his children:

 “Conduct your business in an upright manner and remember, the most important thing in one’s life is to be honest with one’s self. Maintain the high standard and dignity that your business requires. Do not go into deals hastily and be visible in your business as much of the time as is possible.  If you take time to play, do it away from your business, because your livelihood needs all the attention you can give to it.”

Early on, I concluded that the best testimonials came from my many friendly competitors.  We didn’t really compete with each other, in the true sense. True, we were in the same field of endeavor, but we all knew we were there to help each other. Happily, the “tough competition” fell by the wayside.  I remember giving Skip driving lessons and I told him, “Watch the left front fender…..the rest will take care of itself!”  I’ve found this is really true of everything in life.

An old axiom says “If you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.”  That is all part of reputation-building. I found that, sadly, in the field of real estate, truth is hard to come by for many. In our case, it was a major building block in the reputation which we enjoyed, and helped us to thwart the competition.

Goodwill is all of the above, plus a lot of caring for your clients as well as your competitors.  If life is a give-and-take situation, giving is the more important of the two.  The taking will come with time and be far more appreciative.  Just remember – you heard it here!  Ralph Cohen, Founder and Creator of Skip Cohen!