A lesson in outstanding customer service by Moo.com
Moo.com - purveyors of outstandingly classy business cards, postcards, mini cards, stickers and so much more - have given me a lesson in outstanding customer service this week. I shared this story over in the Ready Steady Pro Facebook community already, but I felt that this story deserved to be told to a wider audience as well.
Recently, Moo.com had one of their huge 25% off sales - meaning that for a limited time you could save a huge amount of money on all printed products from Moo! For those in business a saving like this on stationary and important items such as business cards is very handy indeed. In case you didn't know the mainstay of my photography is weddings and portraits and so this sale was a great opportunity for me to re-stock my dwindling supply of luxurious 'Luxe' cards from Moo; a triple-layered card that is so thick it oozes class and really does leave a client with a great impression of you and your business. Whilst I was at it I decided also to design and purchase some Luxe postcards, which I would use as 'With Compliments' slips and some stickers as well.
So, on the last day of the Moo sale after putting my children to bed I designed my new stationary by uploading my logos, entering my text and adding my photographs to my business cards. I sent the order and went to bed happy, knowing that a large box of printed goodies was on the way from Moo! The box would include Luxe Cards, Luxe postcards and round stickers. All-in-all an order worth a little over £120.
A few days later, as I have come to expect from Moo.com my order had arrived on time and well packaged, delivered by DHL. This was the first time I had ordered Luxe postcards so I opened these first - excited to see what was inside! The postcards were great. I got mine all in white with my logo featured on the front. Next I opened my Luxe business cards. They were all there, the images on the front looked crisp and sharp and the colours were accurate. I was, as I always have been with Moo's service, delighted. I was about to take to Twitter and share a photograph of my products when I realised that there was an issue: my telephone number was wrong! I had missed a number out! Disaster!
My beautiful, new Luxe business cards were now useless; I couldn't hand out a card to a potential client with the incorrect contact information on it, what good would that be?! Knowing that this was my mistake, and my mistake alone I sulked for a bit.
I decided to share a photograph of my delivery to Twitter anyway:
So, later that afternoon Moo came back to me on Twitter. I expected the Tweet to read something like "@RammellPhoto you complete numpty! #Fail" but instead Moo said: "@RammellPhoto Oh no, how frustrating! If you can please send over your order number we'll see what we can do for you."
I was very pleased they hadn't mocked me and even more pleased about their willingness to even discuss something that was clearly my mistake.
I replied to the tweet with my order number and was told: "@RammellPhoto No problem :) Our lovely customer service team will be in touch via email shortly to sort this out for you."...
At this point I refused to get my hopes up. I was convinced that the conclusion to this would be that Moo would simply ask me to pay for a pre-print and re-delivery of some new cards, or at least as some sort of sweetener offer free delivery. But the email I received from customer services said so much more:
“We want you to love everything that you print with MOO. If you could please send me the correct information I would be happy to make the changes on your behalf and reprint your cards, free of charge. Please also confirm if the problem is across all the products in your order.”
Wow! Free. Of. Charge?!!? Thank you Moo!
At this stage I would just remind you that the mistake in this instance was mine and mine alone. I wasn't thorough enough. I didn't check it twice. I was the person at fault.
So, I detailed the error I had made in that I had simply forgotten one, single digit from my telephone number, but that the rest of the cards were 100% perfect.
Later that afternoon I received another email asking me to review the PDF draft document showing my cards with the new, correct number. I approved the cards. Shortly after that was an email to let me know that my order was received and going to print. After that another email to let me know that my cards were being dispatched and that they should arrive on July 31st (just 2 days after my initial order arrived).
From disaster to elation. Moo had gone out of their way (and at their expense) to correct a mistake I made. I was more than happy. I'm still surprised right now that Moo are doing this!
I'm not suggesting that Moo.com will replace all your cards for free if you make the same mistake, but I will say that Moo clearly have a culture of great customer service in their business. Coupled with the excellent products they offer I can't ever imagine looking elsewhere for my cards. Moo really have got a customer for life!
Check out Moo.com today and get 10% off your first order by using this link, or by entering the discount code '7qftdq' at the checkout.
I love Moo and I'm sure you will too!
VIDEO: Preparing a Photograph for Print
Printing is considered by many to be the final step in making a photograph. It’s a sentiment I agree with.
The ‘problem’ with printing though is that people often think it’s expensive or that prints never come out quite right:
- Prints can sometimes come out too dark
- Prints are sometimes not as sharp as they were on screen
- The colours can be wrong -
- Too warm or too cool is a common issue
- Skin tones being innacurate and people appear either Orange or Pale
- I’ve also heard on many occasions that prints can appear ‘washed out’ with blacks appearing slightly grey.
Well today I want to share with you a short video to guide you through the basics of printing and to avoid these common issues. If you’re printing your photographs this is, in the most basic way, the very least you should be doing with your photographs in Lightroom to ensure they come out as bright as you intended them to be, to have rich blacks and brilliant whites and to be clean from spots. Take a look:
So, try applying the clipping method and adjusting your screen brightness before editing your photograph and see how different the results are.
If you have any questions please do get in touch with me via the contact form, or over in theFacebook community
The Journey Begins - My new print from Martin Bailey
You cannot beat a print on a wall. Making a photograph that you're proud of and then printing that out on paper can be massively rewarding. Every photographer, no matter what you shoot, should have their photographs printed.
Right, now that's out of the way...
Just before Christmas 2013 I ordered a print from Martin Bailey. Martin is a British-born, Japan-based Nature & Wildlife photographer whose work I simply adore.
One of the reasons I was so keen to order a print from Martin, as opposed to any other photographer wasn't just because of the excellent quality of Martin's photography though. Martin has also literally written the book on printing! Check out Martin's Craft & Vision eBook 'Making the Print'. In Making the Print Martin clearly shows an attention to detail that tells you know he knows exactly what he's talking about. Furthermore Martin gives plenty of tips and advice about how to actually shoot a photograph with the end print in mind. There are some incredibly simple techniques that you can apply to your shooting that will dramatically increase the impact, the quality and the consistency of your prints.
It's for those reasons that I wanted to order a print from the man himself. For my first Martin Bailey print I opted for 'The Journey Begins' - a dramatic monochrome photograph of a dandelion flower. You can see the original photograph over on Martin's website, but here is a photograph Martin sent me just as he'd finished the print, before dispatching it to the UK:
Receiving this photograph of the print from Martin got me all excited and giddy. Each day I'd track it's progress: It took just two days to get from Japan to Coventry here in the UK to a delivery point. There, it took 4 days to get to Berkshire where I live...typical eh! Now it's here though I'm totally blown away with the quality.
One of the things about this print that I can't quite get across to you in the photographs I've made below, is how deep and rich the blacks are and how beautifully crisp and brilliant the whites are in direct contrast. It's such a simple subject, the humble dandelion flower, but it has such impact purely because of the black and white conversion and the simply superb job that Martin has done of the print. Wonderful! After removing it from the tube and then removing the wrapping from the outside and then slowly unrolling it, as if it were some sort of treasure map, I genuinly, literally took in a deep breath as it opened. I stared at it for a few minutes, just inspecting all of the details and the quality.
I've had prints done from labs for clients from the likes of Loxely Colour, OneVision, Whitewall and The Print Space, but in truth none of them have had this amazing feel of quality to them. Whether that's because Martin has more experience and is more of an artisan, whether it's because the original shot is just better for printing, whether it's the paper or the printer or all of the above I can't quite say. All I can say is that I've now got to raise my game and make my prints have this same effect on my clients.
It was only right that I photograph the unpackaging of a genuine Martin Bailey Print, so please do have a look at this 'unboxing' gallery:
(Click to view in Lightbox & Gallery View)
So, all I have to do now is find a means to mount this. I think this one will be going in my office, rather than somewhere else in the home. This is a photograph that I'll be enjoying in my place of work. It'll also be a nice backdrop behind me for when I do Google+ Hangouts and other video calls ;)
What do you think of the print and Martin Bailey's work? Have you read any of Martin's Craft & Vision eBooks? Drop a comment below and let me know.
