The Happy Customers
“That’s the best portrait anyone has ever taken of me!” the man says as he leads me back to the viewing room to look at his portrait. “I look great.”
“You’re a good looking guy.” I say and lean down to look at the portrait, which is in fact a very good picture of the man, but nothing beyond the realm of my normal Assembly Line Portraits. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I’m buying one for everyone I know and I’m going to use it on my business cards.”
“That’s great.” I say and head back to the Camera Room to take the next sitting.
The Photographer seldom hears the compliments about how great, or bad, the portraits are. For the most part, the Passer gets all the complaints and all the praise for the pictures. Once in a while they send the Customer by to tell me what a great job I did, but mostly I am just left till the end of the day to see how the sales went to tell if the pictures were good or not.
Happy Customers are usually happy with themselves-they may not look like Brad and Angelina, but they usually aren’t too worried if they don’t. The Unhappy people generally hate themselves and hate to see images of themselves. The unhappy customers are the ones that yell the loudest, while the happy ones quietly go about their business and leave after buying a large order.
One of the Keystones of the Assembly Line Portrait business is the idea that we will make money if The Photographer takes such great pictures that the customer can’t resist buying them. I’ve had NonBuyers turn down amazingly good portraits and Buyers be happy with less than perfect portraits. The logic of Better Portraits equals Better Sales doesn’t always work, but it doesn’t really hurt.
The Happy Customer is pretty much the norm, they laugh at the jokes, they smile when you smile at them, and they even buy portraits. About 80% of our people are Happy Customers, the Unhappy Ones just grab the majority of our attention. Our business is selling portraits and most of the people we see do buy portraits. This is always amazing to the Unhappy Customers, who wonder aloud how we stay in business since NO ONE ever buys any portraits. The truth is that THEY never buy any portraits, but most other people do.
Sometimes they can fool you though. I went out to the waiting area on a busy day and there was a group of seven that were just bickering and complaining and looking unhappy. I had a couple of sits ahead of them and I heard them complain about how long it was taking and how they needed to be somewhere else and the usual things people say when they are waiting and they really don’t want to be waiting.
I got the family into the Camera Room and got them setup. They all did what I told them to do and even smiled on cue. They moved through the poses easily and looked happy in each shot.
“Wow-that was good.” I say in mild amazement at the grumpy family.
“Where a happy family.” The Family’s little boy of about three says with a deadpan expression. You can’t argue with that.