Help, angry customers and bad word of mouth...

[kelleyrie]

I think you have very nice stuff in there, I do think you should more discretionary about which shots you show. Only the best of the best should make to the customer. I do think her body image is a lot of the issue based on what I see in the photos.
I don't know a lot about posing but I do know it is best to have their body swiveled at angle to the camera and I think you shoot from slightly above for fuller faces. I don't know for sure though so don't take that as fact.

[Cuchulainn]

Ummm yeah... definitely NOT diplomatic hehe.

I do agree that the dress she is wearing is not the most flattering though. Not necessarily because of her weight either. That kind of dress simply doesn't photograph well. Too busy looking. I am not a big fan of stripes or dots. Maybe wide set V-neck neckline, solid color with cap or flutter sleeves, empire waistline.


But as jdepould asked, if the liked 15 what are they unhappy about? Where they expecting or promised more than 15?

Originally Posted by Nathan deGargoyle

Not diplomatic but being honest.....


She's a big lass and the clothes she's wearing do little to flatter her. Tell her that if she wants to look good in her photos she should diet and get some dress sense.

[katsclass]

Originally Posted by Cuchulainn

Ummm yeah... definitely NOT diplomatic hehe.

I do agree that the dress she is wearing is not the most flattering though. Not necessarily because of her weight either. That kind of dress simply doesn't photograph well. Too busy looking. I am not a big fan of stripes or dots. Maybe wide set V-neck neckline, solid color with cap or flutter sleeves, empire waistline.


But as jdepould asked, if the liked 15 what are they unhappy about? Where they expecting or promised more than 15?

They weren't promised more, I promised about 40 decent shots to choose from, I gave them 50+. I also do preshoot consultations during which we go over clothes and what is good in a portrait and not, and I shot down lots of busy things. She didn't even tell me about this dress, but showed up in it, so there you are. I've tried giving her mom a call, but she wasn't there, and so I'll try again later in the evening. I'll let you all know how it went...

[Cuchulainn]

Yes. Let us know. I am curious. It sounds like you did everything right on your end, but sometimes these things happen. Some folks will never be happy with any photo you take of them. Trust me, my mother is a good example. She tears up any photo anyone takes of her no matter how nice it is. I don't know what the deal is about that as she won't say other than "she doesn't like how she looks in the photo." She definitely isn't homely or anything, so I don't know why she hates all photos of her. I don't know if she has some image in her head of how she looks that the photos are shattering or what. I don't ask, I just don't photograph her anymore.

The problem may be that the subject of the photo may not have liked how she looked in the photos and was upset. Her mother may have found it easier to get "upset" with you rather than try to tell her that they are nice photos.

Originally Posted by katsclass

They weren't promised more, I promised about 40 decent shots to choose from, I gave them 50+. I also do preshoot consultations during which we go over clothes and what is good in a portrait and not, and I shot down lots of busy things. She didn't even tell me about this dress, but showed up in it, so there you are. I've tried giving her mom a call, but she wasn't there, and so I'll try again later in the evening. I'll let you all know how it went...

[valleygirl]

Originally Posted by katsclass

A very good friend of hers was planning on getting hers taken with me but found someone cheaper so she went with her, her loss. But they got all of the shots in 4x6's a free album, blah blah blah- things I never promised, and in all honesty the shots don't have any pp, but they are decent, the photog has a good eye- both girls are in my hubby's youth group so I've seen them. They got all this for $100.

Well, here's my take on the cheap photographer: I have learned from giving services cheap that the people who buy those services are the ones who want a bunch of things for free and don't value your work. I've recently learned the hard way that I need to keep my prices high. The people willing to pay more are usually my best customers and the ones who most appreciate my work. If someone can't afford me, let them go to the cheap guy. I don't care. That's just my take on it. Maybe go ahead and say you're sorry they don't like the photos, here's your money back, and tell them to go to the cheap guy. I'll bet you that afterwards they'd wished they had sticked with you.

[FGPhotography]

I'm not sure what they would be upset about, other than what she's wearing (not a huge pok-a-dot fan here), the portraits turned out nice... I don't think their issue would be any fault of yours (especially if - like you said - counselled them before hand as to waht to wear etc). Like the others said, I'd find out exactly what's being said and if they are truely unhappy I'd offer ONE re-shoot in what you've advised her to wear (to flatter her form) and leave it at that... Again, like others said, not everyone can be made happy unfortunately, but I wish you the best! (BTW I like the waterfall one's a lot).

Definately keep us posted, please. I am curiouse as to how this pans out.

[valleygirl]

I have my first ever senior portrait session tomorrow. I have been avoiding it, trying to market myself only as a children's photographer. Nontheless, I decided to try one but this is the exact thing I'm worried about. I was an 18 year old female once, and I remember what an insecure age that was. I think it's one of those groups that is probably tough to please in general, particularly if it's a girl.

As I told you in my PM, I think you do beautiful work. You clearly put a lot of time and thought into your shoot and gave her many great photos to choose from. I think any "anger" is misdirected.

[Jim Poor]

I still think that the one thing everyone is missing is that the actual client has yet to express any dissatisfaction.

[katsclass]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

I still think that the one thing everyone is missing is that the actual client has yet to express any dissatisfaction.

True, and I called her tonight to do a follow up call, see how they thought the process went, was the preshoot consultation helpful, did you feel your ideas were well represented, etc. Mom said everything was great , wondered if she could downsize her order, which I told her I was hesitant about setting that as a precedent because they already had the cd which was part of the large package that they bought and not part of my medium package, I told her we could downgrade to the medium package if she paid the 35 extra for the cd and she said to just leave it the way it was. Pressed the issue on the experience as a whole and how well they liked their proofs and she likes them so I guess I was all worried for nothing. Except that apparently the daughter doesn't particularly love her pics, but I think the kids at school will tell her they are good, so I am no longer worried. Thanks for the support!

[steelese]

Okay, so I take a much more pragmatic view of this. The first thing you need to know is that your pictures were not good work. You accept that and you learn from it, no excuses. Secondly, you need to communicate with your clients about reasonable expectations. If there were 15 pictures that they liked, and if the shoot was an hour long, then I call that good. If you spent more like two or three hours on location, then more is appropriate. Anyways, let you clients know that not every picture is going to be good. This leads us to the fact that you need to not show clients your bad pictures. They don't need to see it. It just isn't useful for them.

So you have to ask yourself, is it worth it. If you are in a larger metropolitan market and have plenty of people to do work for, I would forget about it. The fact that they haven't complained to you directly actually is a good thing. For the most part, when someone complains without complaining to you, it is going to be a small number. If you approach them, you might upset them more. Maybe right off some free prints. Prints are much cheaper than your time. If this kind of thing happens on a regular basis then you better have a good way of fixing it, but if this is a once a year kind of thing, your best to forget about it.

In our business, the whole 10 to 1 ratio is not all that useful. For the most part, the population you are exposed to is not likely to use your services anyway. The people she is going to talk to are not likely to use your services anyway so it may not cost you all that much. This is actually were a lot of people get fixing problems wrong. If you are a Nordstroms (notorious for their good customer service), likely more than half the population of the area you cover is going to go into your store at some time during the year. That means if 10 people hear about it, you likely lost 5 customers. However, if I am a photographer and I have one gig a day for senior pictures, this doesn't happen but lets say it does, my market saturation for the 5 highschools with 600 seniors would be something like 1%. So for those people who hear about it I might not get one customer. But it would take something like 10 bad shoots with complaining before I lost a customer. It doesn't seem logical, but it is.

What you don't want her to become is a vocal complainer. The one who blogs about it and complains about it at every turn for several years. So this is were your real business savvy comes in. You need to give them just enough to keep them from being that unhappy. If its free prints or a refund you are probably good. Don't shoot for free again. Chances are the pictures won't turn out well anyway because of unspoken tension.

So there is my two cents. The real key to this is to not have this problem to begin with. You are a photographer, it is you job to make the photos great, even with sub optimal conditions. Heck, try something new, you never know.