EP 110: Colonoscopies and Customer Service

back in the 90s. The hypothesis, which was supported claimed that people's memories of those painful or unpleasant experiences were most shaped by how bad the experience was both at its worst, and how it ended

up being resolved. The most memorable of these studies that he was talking about randomly divided a group of subjects who were scheduled to have unmedicated colonoscopies into two groups, one group would have a standard colonoscopy, which in case you haven't had the personal pleasure of that experience is supposed to be quite uncomfortable, because you know, there's a scope up your butt. And also, because someone is moving that scope around, no

fun, right? The second group would also have a standard colonoscopy. But at the end, instead of just taking the scope out, the scope would be left inside the patient for an additional three minutes, which sounds worse, right. And objectively, it should be worse, the discomfort of having a scope up your bud was prolonged for three whole extra minutes. But guess who rated the colonoscopy as less unpleasant. Over and over again, it was the subjects in the second group, the one

with the extra scope time. Why? Because for those last three minutes, no one was actually touching the scope. It wasn't moving at all. So even though the sensation of having the scope there was all by itself unpleasant. It was slightly less unpleasant that it had than it had been during the colonoscopy itself. Therefore, at the end of the procedure, the patient experienced a period of some relief. And that relief was felt for long enough that they ended up writing the overall procedure

as more tolerable. So, what in the world does this have to do with photography? Well, today, I'm going to tell you, welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard.

You can do it. And I can show you how. What words would you like your clients to use to

describe their experience working with you? fun, easy, seamless, hopefully stress free, right? What about painful? I hope not. But each and every one of you listening today has had a painful client service experience at some point or another. We all have right? Hopefully not with one of our own clients. But maybe and for sure, at some point out there in the world. Maybe you've had a terrible experience at a restaurant where they took

forever to see you. And then when they did they served your vegetarian mother a steak on Mother's Day. Or maybe you got yelled at by the airline rep right after finding out that your flight was canceled for the third time in a row. Or maybe your cable company came to do some install work for your neighbor and in the process, cut your fiber line and then told you they couldn't fix it for a week. No, was that just me. There's this great quote, If you can't be a good example, at

least be a horrible morning. And sometimes these bad customer service experiences can be just as or even more inspiring than the good ones when it comes to helping us define how we want to take care of our own clients in our own small businesses. But no matter how many systems and processes and automations we put into place to ensure that our clients have a remarkable experience working with us.

Sometimes things go wrong. One time early on in my career while I was still shooting weddings, I backed into a huge and very expensive looking flower display while I was trying to photograph a first day And the whole dance had to be paused. Because when it fell and broke, glass went everywhere. And you know, they had to clean up the glass before the couple can continue dancing, which was obviously an accident.

But it was mortifying, and although my clients were very gracious about it, I'm sure that they weren't thrilled at this thing that interrupted this kind of big moment. And I could tell you countless times where I have run into clients and public and forgotten names, names are not my strong suit. Or, you know, when somebody ordered from the lab didn't arrive on time, or it was wrong, or when I've, you know, had a client who just plain wasn't thrilled with their

photos, it happens. Thankfully, it happens less and less over time, but it still happens, and nothing you can do will prevent every single issue. But when those issues do arise, when you know that you have a client who would not describe their experience working with you as fun or easy or seamless, I want you to remember Dr. Kahneman and his colonoscopy patients. The

point I wanted to make by sharing the story of the colonoscopy experiments is that unpleasant or even painful experiences are not something that we judge all at once or totally objectively, we judge them. And ultimately, we remember them based to a certain extent, on how bad the situation was at its worst. And then to an even greater degree by how it was resolved, how it ended, sort of at the end of the situation. Yes, first impressions are

lasting. But last impressions are lasting, or, which presents us as business owners with an amazing opportunity, when things do go south. And when they do, I

want you to follow these three steps. First, I want you to

check yourself for any feelings of defensiveness or frustration. Even if the client isn't being entirely reasonable, I want you to try very hard to see the situation from their perspective and gauge their level of frustration on a scale from one to 10. Sometimes that means that you're going to need to like sleep on it for a night after you get an angry email. But you need to come to this assessment

with a clear head. So, you know, is this a situation where your client is mostly happy with their photos, but maybe they didn't get one shot that they had mentioned to you that they wanted and so they're feeling disappointed that, you know, maybe that's a three out of a 10? Did you forget their session and not show up when they had cleaned the house and arrange their schedules and you know, had hair and makeup done, that's going to be more like a seven or an eight out of 10.

And if you have a situation where your client is 10 out of 10 upset, you know, maybe it's time to call your insurance agent. But shy of that shy of that 10 out of 10, which hopefully, we don't ever get there. I fully believe that almost any customer service disaster can be brought in for a soft landing. And sometimes your ability to stick that landing is going to impress the client so much that you'll end up in a better position than you would have if everything had just gone

smoothly and flawlessly. Because you know what people aren't used to great customer service, we are all wired to kind of expect that we're going to get screwed. And I want to challenge you to exceed that expectation for your clients. So, like I said, the first step is to objectively try to really gauge your client's pain level on that scale of one to 10. And then the second step is to decide how you can make

that right by matching that number in a positive way. So if you know if it's as simple as a wrong print order or a bungled session, the solution may also be simple. You can just replace the print or reshoot the session if it's a relatively straightforward thing to reshoot. You know, if you missed a shot that they wanted you to get maybe you offer to meet up and get that one shot or if that's not possible, you know, maybe you drop a nice print and a handwritten note in the mail.

Again, you have to judge the level of disappointment and the degree to which that disappointment was your fault. If you just forgot to get the shot that they asked you to get. And that's you know, that is your fault but if it was a matter of Sir stance, if the weather didn't work out for what they wanted that kind of thing, that's not really your fault.

And I have seen photographers go way overboard to make up for small mistakes or things that weren't their fault at all, like a weather condition or something like that. And it's important that you keep your inclination to go overboard in check. Because if you, you know, go heartily apologizing for something that wasn't a big deal or wasn't your fault, you actually run the risk of kind of

weirding out your clients. And if your client is someone who takes advantage of a situation like that, then you apologizing for something that was just a matter, of course, is like inviting them to take advantage of you. But if you really have messed up, like in the example where you didn't show up for a scheduled session, and they had to rearrange their schedules, and all that sort of thing, that's where you have to really step it up to make sure that you

stick the landing. So in the case that I described, you would need to reschedule and reshoot the session, obviously. But you'd also need to both compensate them for the money that they spent, and cover the new cost that it's going to cost to have the house cleaned, and the hair and makeup done ahead of the new shoot. Now, is that expensive? Yes. Should you do it anyway, even if that means you lose money on that session? Also? Yes, yes.

And you have assessed the level of damage, you have met that level with some kind of compensation. And now it is time for step three. If you want to

give not just good service, but truly exceptional service, for anything, but the very smallest issues, you really need to go above and beyond. Again, the level of the problem needs to dictate the level of what I'm suggesting here. But let's say your client got a broken frame delivered, and you couldn't replace it before Christmas, which, you know, they were planning on giving this frame as a gift. Now, that's a shame, but it's not the end of the world.

And even if they're, you know, mad and frustrated and disappointed, everyone understands that these kinds of things do happen, especially if you know it was damaged in transit or something like that, and it's not your fault. Now, obviously, you're going to need to replace the frame they ordered. But you also want to go above and beyond to show them that their frustration and their disappointment, even if it wasn't your fault is important

to you. So you know, in a situation like that, perhaps the week before Christmas, you stopped by their house to say I'm sorry. And you drop off a beautiful gift wrap box with a pretty card inside that says you have a beautiful frame coming from so and so. And it would be here except that it was damaged in transit. And you know, that's just a nice way of giving your client something to put under the tree and the ability to not have to make their own excuses

about that late gift. That kind of thing doesn't really cost you anything but the thought and the effort will mean a lot. For a bigger issue. You need to go more above and more beyond. So after that rescheduled missed session, maybe you hand a gift certificate to the family for dinner out on you for their trouble, or you surprise them with a credit toward a large framed print that they can pick out from your store. Again, money can't solve everything. But money helps solve a lot of

things. And as long as you're careful to reduce the number of these kinds of errors as much as possible. The small amount of money that you spend over time will be more than worth avoiding damaging reviews or the loss of

a customer. And I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again here. This is why it is so important to build a bit of padding into your prices. If you can't overcompensate a client every once in a while because your margins are so narrow that you know doing that is going to put you in the red, it is time to examine your pricing. And if you need help with that, I teach pricing both in my simple sales blueprint. And if you aren't quite ready for that bigger

jump. I also teach it in a short course called pricing for photographers and I will link both of those in the show notes. But I promise learning about pricing yourself correctly is one of the most valuable investments that you can make in your business because just one of these situations What I'm talking about will teach you that. And I promise, it will be a more expensive lesson than just learning it in the first

place. But like I said in the beginning, the good news about having problems arise in your business is that when you handle them properly, your efforts may actually be so surprising and so positive and so impressive, that you earn yourself a client for life. And that client is going to be telling stories to other people about how well you handled a bad situation. And the truth is, most people, the ones you want to work with any way can get past even the most frustrating or disappointing

issues. If they see that you're truly trying to make it right. We all know deep down that if someone is willing to go above and beyond when they mess up, chances are they don't mess up very often. Well, that's it for this week's episode of this can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard comm

slash learn. If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review on iTunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week. I was recently listening to an interview with psychologist Dan Kahneman. Kahneman is more or less a household name these days. He's a psychologist, a Nobel Prize winner and he's the author of a bunch of best selling books including Thinking Fast and Slow and