I have officially had a HD Portraits shoot got to hell in a handbasket. I know one family that will probably never call me again for photos.
It started last weekend, when my battery died at the end of our time together. I’d been working with the family and their one-year-old for over 2 hours, and my battery just went kaput. The End. No more. I didn’t have my charger with me, so the camera malfunction brought a very abrupt end to our session.
The funny thing is that, when I packed my bag for the shoot early that morning, I consciously did NOT bring my battery charger. It had NEVER EVER died on me before. NEVER. Of course, when you tell a family that, they probably don’t believe you . . . and even if they DO believe you, they don’t care. They are only caring about the fact that you didn’t get to finish THEIR shoot properly. They only care about how stupid you are NOT to bring your charger.
I felt terrible . . . but it wasn’t SO bad . . . I felt I could recover. We’d taken 200 photos (at least), and there were some excellent shots in the bunch. I knew the family would be happy, even if they didn’t get to put the little on in that last outfit they’d had in mind. The pictures were good – I was hoping that would redeem my stupidity.
I edited the images quickly, put them in the mail to the family, and I thought that was that. They have already scheduled a Christmas shoot . . . I was hoping to use that session to make up for what we’d missed on this session.
Today, the mom called me. Oh, they were happy with the pictures and thanks for sending them so quickly . . . but their DVD doesn’t work. She put it in the DVD player, and it reads “disk error.”
UGH. Why me?
Mom says that happened before with a burned home movie DVD from a friend . . . and when the friend redid the DVD a second time, it worked. I have a distinct feeling that, even though I have already redone the DVD and am hand delivering it tomorrow, the DVD still isn’t going to work. Some DVD players are finicky and won’t play burned DVDs. I told the mom this, but she assured me if I redid it, it would work.
I doubt it. I’m going to drive 25 minutes out of my way tomorrow to hand deliver it, and I bet it won’t work.
Then what will I do? Refund her money? I’ve already offered to do the holiday shoot for free because of the battery situation.
Again – UGH. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it will go better than I’m anticipating.
It was bound to happen. Not every shoot is going to go smoothly . . . not everyone is going to like my work.
I just hope this mom doesn’t spread slander around her neighborhood about me. She lives in a large, affluent, fantastic neighborhood . . . I want to keep getting more business there.
It started last weekend, when my battery died at the end of our time together. I’d been working with the family and their one-year-old for over 2 hours, and my battery just went kaput. The End. No more. I didn’t have my charger with me, so the camera malfunction brought a very abrupt end to our session.
The funny thing is that, when I packed my bag for the shoot early that morning, I consciously did NOT bring my battery charger. It had NEVER EVER died on me before. NEVER. Of course, when you tell a family that, they probably don’t believe you . . . and even if they DO believe you, they don’t care. They are only caring about the fact that you didn’t get to finish THEIR shoot properly. They only care about how stupid you are NOT to bring your charger.
I felt terrible . . . but it wasn’t SO bad . . . I felt I could recover. We’d taken 200 photos (at least), and there were some excellent shots in the bunch. I knew the family would be happy, even if they didn’t get to put the little on in that last outfit they’d had in mind. The pictures were good – I was hoping that would redeem my stupidity.
I edited the images quickly, put them in the mail to the family, and I thought that was that. They have already scheduled a Christmas shoot . . . I was hoping to use that session to make up for what we’d missed on this session.
Today, the mom called me. Oh, they were happy with the pictures and thanks for sending them so quickly . . . but their DVD doesn’t work. She put it in the DVD player, and it reads “disk error.”
UGH. Why me?
Mom says that happened before with a burned home movie DVD from a friend . . . and when the friend redid the DVD a second time, it worked. I have a distinct feeling that, even though I have already redone the DVD and am hand delivering it tomorrow, the DVD still isn’t going to work. Some DVD players are finicky and won’t play burned DVDs. I told the mom this, but she assured me if I redid it, it would work.
I doubt it. I’m going to drive 25 minutes out of my way tomorrow to hand deliver it, and I bet it won’t work.
Then what will I do? Refund her money? I’ve already offered to do the holiday shoot for free because of the battery situation.
Again – UGH. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it will go better than I’m anticipating.
It was bound to happen. Not every shoot is going to go smoothly . . . not everyone is going to like my work.
I just hope this mom doesn’t spread slander around her neighborhood about me. She lives in a large, affluent, fantastic neighborhood . . . I want to keep getting more business there.
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1 comment:
Isn't there a saying about how you can't please all the people all of the time, just some of the people some of the time? It sounds like you are doing all you can to make it right by your customer. You can only do so much. I'm sure that these experiences will be few and far between!!
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