As a matter of fact he did NOT. Todd, himself, admitted he did not know the answer to my question when he said above, "I have no idea what the "common" expectation is".
You and others here are missing the point of my post.
Let's say I currently tell clients delivery is in 6 months. They know that going in. That's their expectation. But there may be the possibility that all along those 6 months the clients are unhappy that it's taking that long. Before booking me, maybe they like my pictures and, because of a "great price", they'll put up with 6 months. But if they are bitching to their friends (behind my back) the whole time about how frustrated they are in not being able to see their pictures, the bitching is not going to help referrals to me when it comes time for their friends to get married.
Now, I don't KNOW that they're bitching about delivery time. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. Which brings me to the point of my post here which is does delivery time impact client satisfaction, even if delivery is within the contractual timeframe. Is there a "sweet spot" in clients' minds outside of which it seems like delivery is taking too long. Is there a timeframe clients think, "when I get married, I imagine it would probably take between X weeks and X months to get the pictures back".
Eduardo, just saw your reply. I've pulled it down to 3 hours by shooting manually and using LR presets for everything. I have an import preset (VSCO preset that I modified) that gets most of my images exactly where they need to be, and the rest usually just require fairly gentle tweaking. I never touch sliders in LR, which helps save time -- I have presets set up for everything from exposure changes (in 1/3 stops) to tonal adjustments.
At the end of the day, I've spent an enormous amount of time and effort refining my post processing up front so that I can spend less time with it on a per-job basis, which keeps my work extremely consistent (and makes me enormously happy).
D. Diggler wrote:
As a matter of fact he did NOT. Todd, himself, admitted he did not know the answer to my question when he said above, "I have no idea what the "common" expectation is".
You and others here are missing the point of my post.
Let's say I currently tell clients delivery is in 6 months. They know that going in. That's their expectation. But there may be the possibility that all along those 6 months the clients are unhappy that it's taking that long. Before booking me, maybe they like my pictures and, because of a "great price", they'll put up with 6 months. But if they are bitching to their friends (behind my back) the whole time about how frustrated they are in not being able to see their pictures, the bitching is not going to help referrals to me when it comes time for their friends to get married.
Now, I don't KNOW that they're bitching about delivery time. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. Which brings me to the point of my post here which is does delivery time impact client satisfaction, even if delivery is within the contractual timeframe. Is there a "sweet spot" in clients' minds outside of which it seems like delivery is taking too long. Is there a timeframe clients think, "when I get married, I imagine it would probably take between X weeks and X months to get the pictures back"....Show more →
It has been statistically proven that the sweet spot for having photos available for viewing is 2.5 weeks. The satisfaction a client feels increases by 10% each day you are early. Likewise, the satisfaction a client feels decreases by 10% each day you are late. However, if you made the mistake of taking photos of the bride BEFORE hair an makeup, you are already facing a satisfaction deficit which you would need to deliver a free album just to get back to even.
ckhagen wrote:
Well but then you would have to say that the more "photoshop" done to an image, the more valuable it is, which just simply isn't true.
I'm not exactly saying that. I'm wondering, and I'm also pointing out the perception issue. And I might point out that you can't say the less photoshop work done to an image, the more value it has. Nor can you claim that equal value can be assigned to an image with more work vs. the same image with less. In fact, nothing can be claimed. It all depends. What we do know, though, if my plumber takes 5 minutes to fix the faucet, I will assign less value to his work than if he takes an hour for the same repair. He may charge a flat fee, but I will feel more foolish if paying high dollar for 5 minutes of work. Photography isn't plumbing, but the time-vs.-value connection will be made, because in the real world, time is money.
Sure a client who (understandably) doesn't know much about what goes into making a good photograph may be under the impression that it takes a long time, but that doesn't make it a reality.
In this business, more often than not, perception *is* reality. And at least speaking for me, a quick turn-around would mean I didn't reflect sufficiently on the photos I took to process them as they need to be processed. In my case that perception would be nearly 100% reality: a quick turn-around would mean inferior quality, with a direct line from there to reduced value. Others may have perfected their presets and overall process to turn the crank at dizzyingly impressive speeds, but I can't see that benefitting my work.
Making it seem like it took a longer time than it actually did might buy you a value adjustment for a period, but moving forward in this market, clients are going to figure out that it doesn't really take that long if you know what you're doing.
Oh, I think they figured it out already. Which is why they think it's perfectly fine to pay $350 or less for 8 hours of wedding photography. Now there's a quick turn-around we can all gag at.
dlateulade wrote:
Eduardo, just saw your reply. I've pulled it down to 3 hours by shooting manually and using LR presets for everything. I have an import preset (VSCO preset that I modified) that gets most of my images exactly where they need to be, and the rest usually just require fairly gentle tweaking. I never touch sliders in LR, which helps save time -- I have presets set up for everything from exposure changes (in 1/3 stops) to tonal adjustments.
At the end of the day, I've spent an enormous amount of time and effort refining my post processing up front so that I can spend less time with it on a per-job basis, which keeps my work extremely consistent (and makes me enormously happy)....Show more →
Well, I'm going to respect that and defer to you as the expert on what makes your photos great. I do remember fondly my own wedding photographer experience. We came back from our honeymoon, 10 days after we got married, and he had all the photos printed and ready for our review. He probably wouldn't be judged as top-notch, rock-star material these days, but we were happy with the quality and consistency of his work, and ordered lots of stuff. That was back in the film days, circa 1992.
I am looking for ways to reduce any inefficiencies in my own workflow, and I know I'm not all dialed-in yet with presets and overall processing. But I do know enough about myself to accept that I need some time separation between me and my photos to be more objective when I process them. Otherwise either the quality will suffer, or I will be re-processing them a couple of days later before I deliver them.
dlateulade wrote:
I can edit a full wedding in 3 hours or so
I'm just curious how many final photos you typically deliver? I think that's great if you can edit that fast and also agree one should be paid on the quality of their final product, not solely on how much time was put into it.
I use to design newspaper pages in college and one of our designers was blazingly fast; you'd get a headache watching him design. It was insane. Yet, he won several national first place awards for his design work. Some people just work fast.
amonline wrote:
Who doesn't communicate a delivery timeline? I thought that was a given? Not only is it part of the last discussion I have with them at the wedding; it is also part of my immediate follow up email sent when I return home the same night.
Ian Ivey wrote:
Come on, Alan; if there's one thing you should have learned from this forum, it's that nothing about how photographers conduct business -- not even common sense -- is a given.
D. Diggler wrote:
I didn't say I don't communicate a timeframe. I do! My point here is I'm trying to see if changing my current timeframe will increase client satisfaction. When I told Alan, "say you don't communicate a timeframe", I meant, "in the hypothetical situation that the photographer did not communicate a timeframe". In that hypothetical situation, at what point does the typical client start thinking, "it seems like it's taking forever to get my pictures".
Just for FWIW, my question was rhetorical. It wasn't aimed at anyone.
D. Diggler wrote:
As a matter of fact he did NOT. Todd, himself, admitted he did not know the answer to my question when he said above, "I have no idea what the "common" expectation is".
You and others here are missing the point of my post.
Let's say I currently tell clients delivery is in 6 months. They know that going in. That's their expectation. But there may be the possibility that all along those 6 months the clients are unhappy that it's taking that long. Before booking me, maybe they like my pictures and, because of a "great price", they'll put up with 6 months. But if they are bitching to their friends (behind my back) the whole time about how frustrated they are in not being able to see their pictures, the bitching is not going to help referrals to me when it comes time for their friends to get married.
Now, I don't KNOW that they're bitching about delivery time. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. Which brings me to the point of my post here which is does delivery time impact client satisfaction, even if delivery is within the contractual timeframe. Is there a "sweet spot" in clients' minds outside of which it seems like delivery is taking too long. Is there a timeframe clients think, "when I get married, I imagine it would probably take between X weeks and X months to get the pictures back"....Show more →
I think the bottom line is there's "reasonable" timing, and then there's something else. If you're asking the question, then you're probably getting close to the latter. When you hit "something else", you start to alienate your client. That results in dissatisfaction. To me, the sweet spot is 15-30 days. Clients get antsy when you push 45-60 days. I'd personally never make a client wait over 30 days. I just don't think it's ethical.
When I had my part time job (about 20 hours a week) my delivery time was 6-8 weeks. I just didn't have the time. During my busy time, I was going to consults in the evenings during the week after my day job, editing all day on my days off and going to weddings or sessions on the weekends. I barely had a day "off" during the week at all. It sucked.
I just quit my "day job" a few weeks ago and am excited to be able to shorten that time down. My clients know well before booking me what my delivery time is and they get reminded at/after the wedding. Even with this, I'd say about 70% email me around the 5 week mark asking on a status update.
So, I agree with amonline, I think the sweet spot is 15-30 days.
D. Diggler wrote:
....
Is there a "sweet spot" in clients' minds outside of which it seems like delivery is taking too long. Is there a timeframe clients think, "when I get married, I imagine it would probably take between X weeks and X months to get the pictures back".
Just for FWIW, my question was rhetorical. It wasn't aimed at anyone.
I think the bottom line is there's "reasonable" timing, and then there's something else. If you're asking the question, then you're probably getting close to the latter. When you hit "something else", you start to alienate your client. That results in dissatisfaction. To me, the sweet spot is 15-30 days. Clients get antsy when you push 45-60 days. I'd personally never make a client wait over 30 days. I just don't think it's ethical.
How does "ethics" come into play ? Sounds like one would be doing it intentionally ?
Well, if someone makes a client wait intentionally, is that ethical? My example above was based on making a client wait 6 months, as mentioned in the OP. "Ethical" may not be the perfect word, but I think the point is made.
Frustration is what we feel when an expectation has not been met.
Anger is what we feel when we find ourselves no longer in control of something (or someone).
Fear is what we feel when we anticipate that we are about to lose control of something.
So you set the boundaries then exceed them, failing that meet them. That is called managing expectations. If it will take you two months to get them an album after they have approved the album design tell them it takes three months.
That way you eliminate any fear, frustration and anger that can build and instead delight the client.
Any time things are out of your control and may take longer simply continue contact with the client, don't over promise under pressure or you are back to square one. If your album supplier called and tells you a job is now going to take two weeks longer than your promised delivery time I would tell my client four weeks.
But if you do not set the boundaries then clients will set one in their imagination and that will usually result in all those negative emotions as their imagined time frame will usually be far less than reality.
D. Diggler wrote:
Anyone have any thoughts on the question of whether or not there is a relationship between overall client satisfaction with a photo vendor and how long after the event it takes for the client to view the full set of images?
Quicker is better .. I can't imagine any couple not wanting to receive their photos in the shortest time possible.
The rest (ie managing expectations, adhering to your contracted timelines, etc.) will not change their satisfaction (or lack of) one tiny little bit. Although many wedding photographers mistakenly think it may. But then 70% of those same wedding photographers won't survive their first 5 years in business either. End of career
I fell that in this age of instant everything, client expectations have been shortened as they feel they should get their photos practically over night, no matter what we tell them.
They're used to seeing unrealistic things on tv and movies and texting, instant messaging and cellphones have created an instant society. The mindset has been established.
There is no common expectation as everyone has a different idea on what is acceptable/expected and what isn't. Ask your clients or even friends on Facebook if you'd like to know and see the variety they come up with.
Set your own expectations and then deliver on them.
It takes me 6-7 weeks to deliver a wedding. I usually cull everything around the 3-4 week mark post-wedding once I get the film scans back to go along with the digital, then I'll edit the film scans in a day and the digital scans over the course of the next week or two in a few 30-60 minute editing sessions. I've got life and family and all sorts of things going on in between.
It's multi-faceted though. I also don't like to look at the photos so soon after the event. I like to be somewhat removed from the heightened emotions and biased so that I can be more subjective to what is and isn't a good photo. I also want my clients to wait for a while (not too long) so that they don't think I rushed anything, it builds anticipation, etc.
It's also been well-established by friends and fellow photographers of mine that delivering 1-2 months after the wedding usually leads to much higher post-wedding sales (due in part to the clients being able to financially recover for a week or two from the honeymoon I'm sure).
