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Episode 43: Cheyenne Schultz - Elements of a Remarkable Client Experience
151 Plays5 years ago
Today’s guest is wedding photographer Cheyenne Shultz, who is based in Charlotte, NC, and we’re chatting all about client experience. We walk through her entire client experience and chat about things like the tools she uses and gifts she gives.
Cheyenne Schultz is a wife, mama to four, professional photographer and photography business educator and coach living in Charlotte, North Carolina. With more than a decade of business experience, Cheyenne genuinely loves helping creative entrepreneurs achieve the goals they have set for themselves and teaching them what she has learned about how to sustain long-term as a business, turning clients into raving fans and standing out in a saturated market. She believes in dog rescue, homemade lattes, good chocolate, blankets and loving her family well.
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Transcript
Anticipating Client Needs
00:00:05
Speaker
I think half of the client experience is really anticipating what their needs are and then answering the questions before they're even asked.
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:30
Speaker
Today's guest is wedding photographer Cheyenne Schultz, who's based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we're chatting all about client experience.
Cheyenne Schultz on Client Experience
00:00:39
Speaker
We walk through her entire client experience and chat about things like the tools she uses and the gifts that she gives clients. We also relatively recently launched a new website for Cheyenne, which you should totally go check out at CheyenneShultzPhotography.com.
00:00:53
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I'd like to hear from you about what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands That Book podcast as we move forward. I'd also like to know what episodes you've enjoyed most so far and why. To leave your feedback, head on over to the Davian Christa Facebook page and send us a message. Now, onto the episode.
Cheyenne's Photography Journey
00:01:18
Speaker
Well, Cheyenne, welcome to the Brancet book show. I'm excited to dive in and chat with you about client experience. And I think we've chatted on the podcast about things that have contributed to client experience before, but we really haven't talked about client experience itself. And you, you're kind of known for offering an awesome client experience. So welcome. I'm excited to talk to you today. You're so sweet. Thank you for saying that. I'm so happy to be here. I love.
00:01:45
Speaker
talking about client experience. I feel like we've just put a lot into it over the past 11 years of being in business that I love chatting through it. Thank you for having me. You actually have a new website launching on Tuesday that we designed. We're pretty excited about that as well. By the time this episode goes live though, that website will probably be live by then. How was that experience?
00:02:09
Speaker
I am so excited for my new website. We've been working on expanding our team this year, and so we have a new family photographer and a new associate wedding photographer. So that was kind of a natural transition of like, okay, it's time to go ahead and do another website.
00:02:24
Speaker
I've gone through quite a few processes with websites through the years and I worked with Davey and Krista for my new site and I have just been so happy working with you guys and you've just killed it like talk about a client experience like start to finish like I just could not be happier so thank you guys so much I can't wait to show it to the world yeah it's coming out and
00:02:46
Speaker
shoot just like four days or something. Yeah. Yeah. And I know Chris has been excited to show it off to the world as well. And she loved working with you all. And I think she in particular really loved what you guys did with the team page and introducing yourselves and stuff like that. So I'm excited to see that finally comes to life. But we always start our interviews by talking about how our guests got started in business. So can we rewind a little bit? How did your photography business come to be?
00:03:12
Speaker
Sure. So it's always, I don't know when to start, but it kind of starts in college. Like I went to school for an elementary education and this is, I graduated in 2003. So I've been, I've been around for a while, but I did my field work with fifth graders and it was just plain as day, like, this is not my calling. This is not it. I did that when I was a sophomore. I kept on majoring in that, graduated and went to get my master's degree in higher ed administration. I worked in the field for probably like, I think it was two years maybe.
00:03:40
Speaker
Around that time I was engaged myself and started to research photographers for my own wedding and kind of caught the photography bug somewhere in there. It just kind of fell into my lap and my husband went to art school and so he was kind of good at all things art and he started to teach me Photoshop.
00:03:59
Speaker
You know, I'd slap these filters on these images that were like a hundred percent opacity with these actions that I thought were amazing. And looking back, of course, I'm horrified, but all part of the process. Right. And yeah, I just I think it was a year into my I guess I had been at my job for two years and I was just loving what I was doing.
Transition from Education to Photography
00:04:19
Speaker
And I started out just shooting an engagement session for some friends that weren't going to have an engagement photographer. And I loved it. And they asked me to come do her bridal portrait. And then I did a family session and started a blog. And this is back before blogs were a dime a dozen. And they were everywhere. So it was fairly easy to market myself and kind of get my work in front of a lot of people quickly. And so I feel like it did pretty well off the bat. It's so different now starting a photography business where
00:04:49
Speaker
You know, of course the market is just very saturated and there's a lot of really great photographers to kind of all be getting in at the same time. So I feel like part of it was timing as far as why my business did well in the beginning. But yeah, I left my full-time job and, you know, never looked back and it kind of just took off from there. So.
00:05:09
Speaker
It's been great. It's been 11-ish years, I think, and it's fun. I really, I love my job. I love being a business owner. I think I have one of the best jobs in the world. So yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's awesome. Did you ever miss the classroom? No. I don't know. I was never actually like in the classroom. I was only like for a very short period of time. Sometimes I miss working with college students when I got my master's degree. Like I love, you know, that age students for sure.
00:05:39
Speaker
But yeah, this has been the best thing that I could have done. So I love that I took that leap. And looking back, it was probably more of a risk than I realized it was to leave my job when I did. But that is also what propelled me pretty quickly, is I could really just pour myself into business and growing it.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah. I always love hearing about people's background because it's always kind of crazy to think where people started. We just assumed that people are going to go off and get an education and what they're eventually going to do. And so often that's just not the case. I also have a background in education as well. And I get that question quite a bit, whether I miss that or whether I miss the classroom and things like that. And I miss the classroom, I miss the kids, but I don't really... I just
00:06:26
Speaker
I love what I'm doing, you know, and certainly the biggest thing was like leaving behind six years of I mean, I paid a lot of money to get those degrees and I spent six years of my life to get those degrees. So I think that was hard to be like, oh, my gosh, am I really leaving this all behind to do something completely different? So that was hard to grapple with at first, but.
00:06:46
Speaker
But yeah, clearly it worked out, so I felt good. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, do you feel like it was a waste though? You know, I always think that, I mean, my degrees are in theological studies and I have a master's in multicultural education, you know? And I can look back and I, you know, if I could go back in time knowing that I would do, you know, what I'm doing now,
00:07:04
Speaker
you know, I'm not quite sure I would study the same things. With that said, you know, I look back at those things and there's so many elements of that education and my experiences, you know, within that education that I think helped me today. Do you feel that at all or? I mean, absolutely. More so outside of the classroom. Like I loved my college experience and just like
00:07:25
Speaker
all of those soft skills of how to work with people, and I was pretty involved in my sorority, which I was always anti-sorority and ended up being the president of my sorority by the time I was a senior. I loved my experience, and I feel like there was so much that I gained from it that, yes, I mean, actually, study-wise, I just wasn't really into it as an 18-year-old going into college.
00:07:49
Speaker
You know, it was kind of like, I want to do this. But once I was there, it was kind of like one foot happens with my studies. And I wish I could go back now and like study some of the things that I did because I feel like now, you know, as a 37 year old, I'm much more interested in learning about the things that I was learning about. Sure. But yeah, definitely picked up. I mean, I would never undo my college experience and got to study abroad and like have life experiences. And the people I met were just, you know, some of the best people in my life. So.
00:08:17
Speaker
I would never undo it or regret it. It was a wonderful thing. But yeah, it was a lot of
Managing Finances and Team Building
00:08:22
Speaker
money too. Yeah. And that's the thing is I definitely, you know, I think what makes me question it is just the student debt, you know, that I graduated. But thank God for people like Dave Ramsey and, you know, the debt snowball and things like that. So fortunately, we've paid off our student debt for quite a time now. But back to client experience, back to your story. I'm sorry, I sort of derailed at the time.
00:08:41
Speaker
to talk about education here for a second. However, talking about your team, how recently have you built a team around your business? Pretty recently, we hired our first associate photographer last February. So I guess it's been a year now. She started out, I initially hired her to be an associate wedding photographer for us and
00:09:03
Speaker
You know, she had a lot going on at the time. And we just, after a few months, it kind of, we talked about it and it made more sense to transition her into doing more family portrait work. And so we finished off training her, you know, through the summertime and launched her in September.
00:09:18
Speaker
And that was awesome. Like she booked out her whole fall. I mean, again, a timing thing. Like I feel like, you know, everyone wants family portrait work in the fall. And so that was a great time to launch her. So that went really well. But then I also knew that like I initially hired her to do weddings. So I still had that in the back of my mind. So we hired our second, our second lady, Emily, we hired her in September ish and she's been training with us through the fall.
00:09:45
Speaker
And we are just about to launch her. We kind of did a soft launch probably a month and a half ago or something. And then we're about to really put her out into the world.
00:09:53
Speaker
next week here when we launch the website. What are some of the things that went into building a team within your business? It is a personal brand. You're using this as a segue to talk about client experience because I think a personal brand, the client experience is really based on you and interacting with you. What did that transition look like for your client experience? Did anything really change?
00:10:19
Speaker
not really really just small things as far as customizing emails and I mean we had not really done a whole lot of family portrait work so that took a little bit more effort just to but compared to a wedding it's considerably less as far as you know maybe they'll book you a month in advance and so there's a month of time month and a half maybe of like what that looks like but with a wedding it's you know a year sometimes of what a start to finish looks like and so
00:10:45
Speaker
There were some things that we had to tweak, but I feel like, you know, we really went into building a team with a pretty solid client experience already.
Enhancing Client Onboarding
00:10:54
Speaker
And so it was really just taking things and tweaking them. I imagine it would be really difficult to kind of incorporate it, build the team and.
00:11:03
Speaker
you know, improve my client experience at the same time. So I feel like we kind of had a leg up on things like that was already rolling pretty well. And it was just kind of it felt pretty, pretty much like a seamless transition. It was really just focused on training that person and marketing that person and the client experience stuff. I mean, so far, you know, we've only
00:11:21
Speaker
We're just getting started with weddings and seeing how that's going to play out with our wedding photographer. You know, so time will tell as far as what may come up. There's been a few small things, like I said, like fixing some canned emails and whatnot, you know, updating all of our materials. We send out a photography planning guide at the beginning of the experience. So updating to include her in that. And it's really just some language things. But, you know, I feel like it's been pretty.
00:12:05
Speaker
you know, when they are actually assigned that contract. And, you know, there's some things that go into it beforehand when they're kind of inquiring and going through the consult process. But from when they sign the contract, you know, it's really that onboarding experience is what we start with. And from the get go, we just want to make sure that, you know, they've first of all, they've just given us a large portion of money. And so, you know, recognizing that that sometimes can be like, oh, kind of hard to do. And so we want to reinforce like right off the bat.
00:12:08
Speaker
pretty seamless at this point, so we'll see.
00:12:32
Speaker
You are in good hands like we've got you you made the right decision and so right away we kick off with an email that my studio manager sends to the new client. And it's really just welcoming them to the csp family here's where you can access all of your documents you can see the payments you made we direct them to that portal and then.
00:12:53
Speaker
You know, this is what you can expect from us as far as is our office hours. And this is how we communicate. And when you're ready to book your engagement session, like this is what you should do. So kind of just preliminary things to keep in mind as they're kind of new with us. And then after they get that email, you know, we send them a welcome gift in the mail and we're really just trying to get them excited about working with us. You know, we send them that photography planning guide, we send them.
00:13:18
Speaker
I can talk about this later too if we want to talk about specifically what we send them, but just some things to get them excited about working with us. And then from there, you know, it depends on when they are ready to book their engagement session. That's usually the next thing that the next touch point that we have with them. Sure.
00:13:32
Speaker
And so there's kind of a before, during, and after process of working with someone for the engagement session. You know, first, you know, before, before you move on to that, I do have a question about a couple of things just around kind of that welcome packet that you send them. One, you had mentioned that you have a client portal. What do you use for your client portal? We use DevSato for our CRM and we've just within the past year started using that.
00:13:54
Speaker
And it's really just, at this point, we're using it to collect payments and have them sign a contract so they can view their invoices, they can view their contracts. We have them fill out questionnaires, which I'll talk about in a little bit. So anything, and even correspondence, we try to send a lot of our emails through that portal so they can kind of see history of what we've communicated with. Yeah, and have you enjoyed Dipsado? We have, yeah. It's been really good. I mean, I can be old school.
00:14:22
Speaker
what works and staying with what works. I kind of went kicking and screaming to a CRM like people have been using it for how many years now and finally just a year ago was like, okay, like, this is something that we need to do. And it's really just, again, the motivation was this is going to provide a better experience for our people.
00:14:39
Speaker
if we can make it easy to sign a contract and they can do it electronically and not have to send in a paper copy and if they want to make an online payment. So that was really kind of the motivator in wanting to do that. So we've enjoyed it. We started using Dipsado as well. We really like it. We haven't started using the client portal feature though, but that is kind of on the radar to start using. So have you found that your clients really enjoyed that or really appreciated that aspect of things, being able to log in
00:15:05
Speaker
and look at you know kind of all the correspondence and documents that have been exchanged between you and them. I would imagine I mean I haven't had any direct feedback but I would imagine for type A people like myself like sure you know they want to like know that I'm on top of it and they can view their things whenever they want to I'd imagine that it is useful for them it certainly doesn't hurt anything so.
Preparing for Engagement Sessions
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's been good. Awesome. And what are some of these other things that you sent? So you send over sort of a guide just laying out expectations. I really like that because it's done right off the bat. I imagine that you avoid a lot of, I guess for lack of a better way to put it, conflict later on in the relationship just by establishing, hey, this is when I email and this is what the process looks like. And there's probably some comfort in there as well, just in terms of
00:15:50
Speaker
you know, these people probably haven't been married before, you know, so they haven't gone through this process. So by you saying, hey, this is what the timeline looks like going forward, it probably provides them some level of comfort and assurance. Yeah, I think half of the client experience is really anticipating what their needs are and then answering the questions before they're even asked. Because like you said, they don't leave most often, they've never been married before, they don't know what to expect. And so sending that guy off the bat, assuming they read it, there's a lot of information in there as far as
00:16:21
Speaker
You know, everything from what to expect about the best way to communicate with us and, you know, what to expect for your engagement session. This is what you can wear for your engagement session. You know, this is the timeline, our proposed timeline or ideas for our timeline of the wedding day. And, you know, if you want best light of the day for a wedding ceremony, these are the approximate times you should think about, you know, this is how you'll get your images and basically just thinking through like any kind of question that they would have going into this or things that we would want them to know.
00:16:51
Speaker
We included in there, it's like a 66 page guide. It was such a labor of love. It took me forever to do. We've really only been doing it for the past two years. It was one of those things where I, it was always on the list of important things to do, but it was a beast to put together. We used, you know, Caitlin James sells, you know, a template file guide, I think she calls it. And so we went ahead and bought that. And that was, that was a lifesaver for sure. But even then it still is so overwhelming.
00:17:18
Speaker
to put all of your own information in there and get it printed and whatnot, but it's been awesome. So it was definitely worth the investment of time and money for sure.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah. So moving on to you have that initial sort of reinforcement period, you get people set up in their, their welcome, you know, portal and they get all their welcome materials and things like that. And then you mentioned the next touch point with them is the engagement session. And you were just telling us how there's sort of a before middle and, and after, you know, in terms of correspondence there. So do you want to jump back into that?
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds great. So beforehand, before the engagement session, once they are ready to go ahead and get their session on the books, right after that, they get a questionnaire through Deb Sato. And it's just asking them about the two of them, about the couple, what they like to do together. A couple key questions that I have on there is, you know,
00:18:07
Speaker
On a scale of one to 10, how excited are you for the engagement session so that if they put a one or two, it's something that I can address at the beginning of the session. And I kind of keep it breezy but it's, you know, if they're dreading it for whatever reason, then I can kind of like just, you know, pull the elephant in the room like just talk about it and
00:18:25
Speaker
and get through that and say like hey i know she put a two on your you know on your level of excitement tell me about that and usually it's again in a joking matter and they can kind of talk through that and i can reassure them this is not gonna be as bad as you think it is like it's gonna be fun. And so that's always helpful to ask ahead of time but i'll ask them for their ideas for their engagement session and kind of suggest locations from there so involving them in that process.
00:18:49
Speaker
And then, you know, I'll also point to, I've written like a couple blog posts of some various helpful things. And one of them is what to wear to your engagement session. So I'll point to the photography planning guide, reminding them there's information about there to review.
00:19:03
Speaker
Also, here's a blog post I created so you can, if you're needing ideas for what to wear. So thinking through like, again, that's probably something that, you know, maybe they don't have planned out already. Maybe they're anxious about it. So I'm trying to like equip them with something just so they can have that information and move forward. So.
00:19:20
Speaker
That's kind of the before. And then the other before thing is that, you know, during the console, I will take time to, right after a console, I will write down anything that the couple has told me about themselves, about their wedding. And I will kind of put that away until they book with me and then I'll transfer those notes into their file. And then I can review those notes right before their engagement session. Cause if I don't go to their console and then we don't do their session for three more months and I'm working with, you know,
00:19:47
Speaker
15 or 20 other clients, then it's hard to keep track of those specific little details of each couple and what makes them special. Because I do care about them, and I want them to know that I care about them. So it's an easy way to personalize an experience, just reviewing their file and like, oh, that's right. They mentioned this thing, and maybe I can talk about that during the session.
00:20:06
Speaker
So the session comes and, you know, we really just try to make it fun and easy. People are usually nervous about it. So it's about reassuring them and, you know, we give them some fun things to do during the session. And, you know, hopefully it's good for them. We just try to keep it fun and light. And then afterward, like right away, we send them all like a what's next email, because again,
00:20:27
Speaker
usually that they're not remembering that in their contract, it says that, you know, two to three weeks from now is when you'll, you can expect your proofs to be turned around. So we send a what's next email reminding them, you know, these are when your, your files will be ready. And I also send like a quick preview as well of a couple of their images. Cause I know I can remember back, like it's, you're excited to see something like right away and you don't want to have to wait two to three weeks, even though that that's reasonable, but it still is like giving them a little something to chew on and get them excited about from their session. So.
00:20:58
Speaker
And then once the, you know, we always try to turn around the files quicker than we said that we were going to. So we really aim for like a week and a half turnaround. We send those in an online gallery and then also offer a USB to them, which I send in the mail. And, and we always try to include a little something extra that they weren't expecting that they didn't pay for necessarily. So we include a set of prints with a little wood block from artifact uprising, just kind of our, of our favorite, you know, images from their session. So we send that
Creating Content for Clients
00:21:27
Speaker
along.
00:21:27
Speaker
And our packaging is very, very curated, very, or very specific and intentional. And so we always try to take that up a notch just from what they might be expecting. So, you know, they're expecting a USB in the mail, but they're not expecting like a nice USB with the nice tissue paper. And I'm just so weirdo about that stuff. I feel like people can take it or leave it. Like I get really excited about great packaging myself. And so half of my business, I feel like is the things that I loved and what I would want.
00:21:57
Speaker
as a client and just doing those things. That's basically the engagement session. There are so many elements of this part of the experience that I want to talk about real quick. Number one, just the amount of content that you've created to enhance the client experience from not only that bridal guide or what did you refer to it? Is it a bridal guide? We call it a photography planning guide.
00:22:19
Speaker
Okay, so the photography planning guide. So not only all that information that's in the photography planning guide, really appreciate the fact that you point people back to that. Because like you said, it is 66 pages. So, you know, when people receive it, they might not go through the entire thing. So pointing people back to that and reminding them that it's there, I think is super helpful. Beyond that, you said you mentioned, or you mentioned a blog post and it was about, you know, what to wear at an engagement session.
00:22:42
Speaker
And again, I think that does so many different things there. And I wanted to hear in a second why, you know, what made you come up with, you know, the idea of writing a blog post like that. But I assume that number one, it helps you because, you know, there's nothing worse about, you know, taking beautiful images, but them not really being.
00:23:00
Speaker
beautiful images because of what the couple's wearing. So from just a marketing standpoint and being able to share those images, I think that's probably helpful. But even more important than that, you're just again reassuring people who might be really nervous about that and might be a little bit sensitive to how they look in pictures especially. Some pointers on how to make the most out of their engagement session. So did you write that blog post after maybe having some struggles there?
00:23:28
Speaker
How did you come up with the idea of creating some content around these areas specifically? Sure. It's really just, again, thinking about part of when we were creating our client experience, because it was a very intentional process, is really thinking through what are the pain points that these people are experiencing?
00:23:47
Speaker
And again, I feel like so much of this is about empathy and putting yourself in their shoes and really thinking about, okay, like I'm engaged. I've never had my engagement. I've never had an engagement session before. I particularly can get nervous about what to wear for certain things. I kind of need direction from people or someone just to like reassure me that yes, this is good. And so it was really, it really came from a place of that, of really thinking about what are they feeling in this moment? Let's see what we can do to kind of,
00:24:16
Speaker
insert ourselves to make it easier for them and solve their problems. So that's really what it came down to. It definitely is a perk for sure that they come looking nice and wearing pretty things and that definitely helps. And it's not only what to wear, but if you want to have your hair and makeup done, let us know. We love to refer you some hair and makeup artists or
00:24:40
Speaker
Simple things even like leave your purse in the car because it's just going to be you're carrying around a purse all the time. You don't want to do that. So and even again like I think you know the heart of it being like we would you know encourage them to go on a date afterward. You know use this as a time to enjoy each other. This is going to be a fun thing. It doesn't have to be a dreaded thing. I mean typically our brides are usually really excited but
00:25:03
Speaker
Sometimes if we get those like lower scores on how excited we are they're coming from the guy and so it's really just trying to reinforce that to him mostly that like this will be fun like it's an hour of your life you're gonna be okay. Yeah so so yeah but really just coming from a place of empathizing with the client and like what their needs are.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah and I just think there's so much good stuff here regardless of if you're listening and you're not a photographer. I mean there's just so much you can take away from this I think just creating content around those tough points or potential tough points within the client experience. And the other thing that I want to briefly talk about and we'll dive into gifts a little bit more later but that small gift that you give them from Artifact Uprising
00:25:44
Speaker
picture on the wood block. When we were shooting, we did something similar. And I just think it's such a great way to, I mean, it's going to go in their house, you know, and when their friends come over, they're going to see that. And when family comes over, they're going to see that. So I mean, it's great, it's great marketing material that that's going to be put up in their house. But in addition to that, we found too that like, it's so nice when family and friends see images from an engagement session,
00:26:10
Speaker
because then they're less likely to be that family or friend that's actually at the wedding saying, hey, make sure you get that shot. Because they've seen the work and they trust you, right? So as far as the engagement session goes, is that something that you do with all of your clients?
00:26:28
Speaker
We do and I've come back and forth with this for a few years.
Building Trust with Clients
00:26:31
Speaker
I feel like, well, maybe even more than a few years, but I just come back with like so much of a lot of our client experiences just comes about relationship and wanting to build a solid relationship with them and getting them comfortable in front of our cameras and building that trust.
00:26:46
Speaker
And I feel like the very few times that we have not offered or not have done an engagement session with a couple, it just like takes the fun out of it for me too, because I feel like we're less connected on wedding day. There's kind of that, like, you know, I don't know this person. They're a stranger. That trust is not there necessarily. So we've just found it to be just invaluable to our overall experience because come wedding day, you know, they know me as Cheyenne.
00:27:12
Speaker
If I asked them to do something that might be a little bit weird or questionable, they're not questioning me. They're saying, you know, we trust you, like do it. We know that you're gonna, you're gonna take care of us. You're gonna nail this. So I feel like it's been the best thing ever. So when we've considered taking it out and not.
00:27:28
Speaker
I just, I always go back to, especially like there's been a couple of times, like recently we did a session where he put a zero on how excited he was for the session. And I've never had that before. And I called him. I was like, so you're the first one that's ever put a zero, like tell me about that. And so at the end of the session, I mean, he was just, he, he was the sweetest can be. He just really hated having any kind of picture of himself taken.
00:27:51
Speaker
And at the end of, or when we got home, she had sent me an email like right away saying, you know, he, you've officially converted him. Like he loves you. Like he can't wait for the wedding. And I was like, yes, like that's what it's all about. Like, and it just reinforced to me, like, this is why we do it. Especially for those people who are nervous about it, especially on a wedding day, if you've got.
00:28:09
Speaker
You know hopefully we've got twenty minutes to do portraits of the bride and groom together that's usually what it comes down to i don't have time to go through the awkward feelings and the dread of it like we just need to jump right in and they kind of know what to expect and we can just knock it out and really maximize small amount of time that we do have with them so.
00:28:30
Speaker
No, and I agree. I think anytime you can create like a really big trust building moment like that early in the experience, you're just gonna make the rest of the experience so much easier. And on a wedding day where so many different things can add stress to the day, you know, it's so nice knowing, you know, like if that couple knows, okay, I have great photos for my engagement session. And so photos just aren't even a concern for them on their wedding days from the standpoint like they know you're gonna capture, you know, everything.
00:28:57
Speaker
I think that's just so helpful. And even from Krista and I, we've been talking about our client experience lately a lot. We have a team retreat coming up this weekend actually, and we're going to dive back into that just as we do every year trying to improve things. But what experiences can we create in our process early on similar to that that build trust for the rest of the experience? And I always thought once we changed to a model for our photography business back when we were shooting, when we did an engagement session to start, it just made such a big difference for the rest of the experience.
00:29:27
Speaker
Absolutely. So after the engagement session, what's next? Right. So the next kind of touch point comes about a one month out, it's time to A, for them to pay their final payment, and B, work on their timeline.
00:29:41
Speaker
And so, you know, thinking through again, like, okay, this is kind of it can be like, you know, a little touchy of a time because they have to then, you know, hand over more money to me and just thinking about like, okay, they're probably maybe they're a little stressed out. They've got a lot going on. It's a month out. And so I wanted to at that point, like send them something a little something in the mail, just let them know, you know, it's really
00:30:03
Speaker
I can tell you, it's like I said, I only send it out to the brides. A lot of our branding is bride centric, I feel like. And so we send it to the brides and it's, it's really kind of a self care kid of, you know, here's like a foot scrub and here's a mask and here's some bubble bath or it's a bath salts and some chocolate. And so we send that to them and say like, Hey, like I know. And I use my own personal experience from my wedding day. Like I was really stressed out about a month ahead. And I hope that, you know,
00:30:30
Speaker
things are going well for you. There's going to be a lot to come in the next few weeks. Enjoy every moment. Here's some things to take care of yourself. And so we send that in the mail as a surprise for them. They're not expecting it all. And, you know, again, the timing of it is nice being that that with that money thing and just being sensitive to that. So we send that out and then, you know, it's timeline planning time. And so, you know, just working through logistically for what's to come for a wedding day. So that's kind of the next
00:30:58
Speaker
thing at that point that we go to and then it's it's wedding day and you know on wedding day I feel like you know not only are we hustling the whole day and just showing them that you know we are there to work hard and do everything that we can do to get them great pictures we're really trying to I always tell my team like my second shooters and when I've been training my team that it's really about being a helper on a wedding day and that there are things that are going to come up that are outside of the realm of you know
00:31:28
Speaker
photography. And if you see a need, like, as long as you're not missing a key moment or something, go meet that need. If you see grandma struggling to get out of her seat, you run over there and you help her out and get her to where she needs to be. If we bring along, you know, these little kits, one for myself and one for my second shooter of
00:31:48
Speaker
just kind of like things along the years that we've seen to be a problem. But you know, if a bridesmaid's dress is staticky, you know, we have some a little travel thing of static guard, we've got safety pins, like I mean, typical, I'm sure a lot of people do that. We bring that along. And anytime there's a need from someone in the family, the bride, the bridal party, like we're able to say, hey, I've got that. Someone's like, gosh, I need some scissors right now. I'm like, I've got scissors.
00:32:12
Speaker
And it's just so easy to jump in there and fix their problems. So I found that that's been really helpful. I can remember one time the bride was out on the dance floor at the end of the night and her bustle of her dress had broken. And I'd seen she was struggling with it. And so like I ran over with my safety pins. I said, Hey, do you need some safety pins? Because her maid of honor was trying to help her get it together.
00:32:32
Speaker
And I just, and she said, yeah, that'd be great. And so I got down my hands and knees and started trying to bustle the dress up and pinned it up. And then I'm walking away and I heard the maid of honor say, she's amazing. And it wasn't like, I'm like, oh yeah, I am amazing. But it was like, this stuff matters. Because that stood out to her. That was something that I wasn't just there to take pictures. I was there to help and fix problems. And I think that stood out to that person. And who knows?
00:33:02
Speaker
That's the thing on Wednesdays, you never know who's watching you and who's paying attention and who might be engaged and who might be looking for a photographer themselves. And so I feel like
00:33:12
Speaker
just, you know, working your butt off, helping people. And it really goes a long way. So that's kind of what we do on wedding day.
Delivering Wedding Photos with a Personal Touch
00:33:18
Speaker
And then immediately following the wedding day, we will send out what's next email. And I try, if at all possible, the next day, sometimes if I get home early enough that night, I will go through and pick out a couple of images and edit them very quickly and send that email. I always ask them when they're going on their honeymoon and where they're going.
00:33:39
Speaker
And so along with that, what's next email, here's what to expect. And here's a couple of preview images. I send them just like an e-card, a Starbucks e-card and say, Hey, have a great time on your honeymoon in wherever, have a couple of coffees on me at the airport tomorrow morning. So I send that along in an email. And yeah, then again, we always just try to exceed our stated turnaround times. So we say six to eight weeks.
00:34:03
Speaker
We've really gotten it down to definitely closer to three to four weeks turnaround time, depending on time of year. And then instead of just sending them their online gallery is the first thing that they see. We go ahead and we've ordered some prints right away. I take that like the first thing we do is we'll, we'll put together a quick slideshow of our favorites. We send that out that Tuesday after the wedding day.
00:34:24
Speaker
And it's more than just a couple of preview images. So they get the slideshow, it's set to music. They're getting an immediate kind of sneak peek of their day. So they do have that. But then the first thing they see after that, they actually get the package in the mail of the USB with some added prints in there. Cause I was just thinking like, you know, I don't want the first time they see their images like this very emotional day just to be online and they're just clicking through their images and.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yes, it's nice and immediate, but it just took away that tangible, let me hold and feel and like, wow, be really wowed by it.
00:34:56
Speaker
As a surprise, we will send them, they don't know it's coming, they don't know their images are done, and we send the USB in the mail, they get those prints, and then they have a little card that directs them to the online gallery. Yeah, I really like that. I really like that because again, just knowing certain people's computer resolutions and their color settings, it's the one way I think really to guarantee they're looking at the actual image that you took and not something that looks weird because the colors are off on their monitor.
00:35:25
Speaker
But then just from that, you know, being able to, you know, that tactile like actually holding onto the print, I think there's something really special about that, you know, which is one of the reasons why we love shooting film, which is because there's more emphasis on, I think, you know, actually holding a product. But the other thing that I really like are those kits that you put together for the wedding day. I think that's something you see often from wedding planners, you know? But really, I mean, the photographer, especially if there's not a planner, you know, oftentimes the photographer ends up being
00:35:54
Speaker
you know, the planner or the assistant planner almost just because they're the really the only other vendor that I can think of at the top of my head that's with the bride and groom, with the couple from start to finish on the wedding day. So again, I just, I mean, I really appreciate how you're thinking through, you know, potential areas of conflict and
00:36:13
Speaker
you know, basically just answering them, you know, whether it be through content or creating these kits, even in how you present your product or service, because I think, you know, you can do great work and your experience can still not be very good, right? Absolutely.
00:36:29
Speaker
So, I appreciate that from how you've thought about the experience holistically from start to finish and really focusing on making those low points in the experience not as low. Nobody likes paying thousands of dollars. Even if they're excited to work with that person, they probably rather not pay thousands of dollars. Sure.
00:36:48
Speaker
One of the things that you've done throughout your entire experience, it seems like, is use gifts to offset some of those feelings. Even just reassure people that they made the right choice. How did you go about incorporating gifts into your client experience? Why did you pick some of the gifts that you did? Yeah, I feel like that's been a progression through 11 years. I'm just a gifts person. The Five Love Languages book, if you've ever, I'm sure you've heard of that.
00:37:16
Speaker
Like, I think I've changed now that I've had children, but I definitely was a, gifts was my love language. And so I loved getting gifts and I loved giving gifts. So it's always just, it's come very easily to me and something that I knew that I wanted to incorporate early on. When we first started though, I mean, it was not a, we were not making near as much money as we are now. And so like the gift that we were giving was not at this point, we give multiple gifts throughout the experience. But when we first started, you know, it was a thank you gift in the mail.
00:37:44
Speaker
just reinforcing that initial decision that they made. And it was, you know, I remember we would go to the Hallmark store and get like, at the time our branding colors were like this bright green. And so we found these boxes that were bright green and we would go and buy them at the Hallmark store. And we included like a little $5 frame. And my husband, who was a graphic designer, he created a little
Crafting a Remarkable Client Experience
00:38:05
Speaker
card that said, for your favorite engagement session and put that in the frame and some candy. So it's very simple, but it was just like,
00:38:12
Speaker
you know, something to kind of seal the deal with these people. And so we've done that from the beginning. And then it's just been through the years, like as our brand has changed as well, that we wanted whatever we were gifting them to fit our brand. We wanted it to be useful and practical, like not something that they were just going to throw in the garbage. We wanted it to be something that, you know, wasn't, it was not with our like logo on it, but it was within brand. And so as far as what the gift was.
00:38:39
Speaker
So it's taken a lot of trial and error in figuring out and I may find something that I really liked and thought would work well and then maybe the next year I would change it. I don't recommend doing that because it's a lot of work to kind of redo your process and order the new things and figuring out the package. But again, it's just something that I really enjoy doing and so it's come easy for me to do that.
00:39:01
Speaker
I think mainly one of the biggest things we always said was, we don't want this to slap our logo on it. And I feel like people really get it wrong when they do that. I remember ordering a new software with a company through photography and they sent us this notebook in the mail and it had their logo put on the front. And I'm just thinking, man, if this would have just had
00:39:24
Speaker
Like a cool quote or if it was just plain like and not with their I didn't even like their logo like it just I did not enjoy the booklet and I heard the notebook and I just threw it away and I thought if they would have just made this something that like was useful to me and that I liked like I would have kept this and use this like for a considerable time and I probably would have thought of them every time I went to go use it in some degree so
00:39:45
Speaker
You know, that's one thing I feel like staying away from like any kind of little Chachki thing with your logo on it, I think is highly important when you're thinking about gifting. So 100% agree. Yeah, 100% agree with that. There's a great book. I think it's called giftology. Love that book. Okay. Yeah. Awesome.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think as far as just the gifts that we've thought through for our business as well, that's been one of our go-to foundational books in terms of thinking through that kind of stuff. I'll have to put that in the show notes for anybody interested, but giftology, and it's a really short read. It's really short, easy, but full of great material as well. And that's really helpful I think for people because client gifts I think are so perplexing sometimes, what to get people and what's scalable too.
00:40:27
Speaker
Because there's nothing worse than like getting something or trying to incorporate something into your process that is just such a pain to, you know, whether it's the order or package or whatever. So try to find something that's meaningful, but then also can be easily fit into your experience. You know, as far as tips for other people who want to craft, you know, a unique, awesome client experience, what advice would you give, you know, somebody who is seeking out your help on this?
00:40:56
Speaker
So I kind of think there's kind of four main things that someone that really wants to go in and improve their client experience or really just knock it out of the party. There's four main things that I would recommend that they do. The first thing is to map out their client journey so far. What do they currently do? Write down every touch point that their client is experiencing with them. Write that down.
00:41:21
Speaker
The second one is to start filling the holes and thinking about, okay, what is the client thinking and feeling at each touch point? You know, tapping into that empathetic place of putting yourself in their shoes and just thinking through, okay, at this point, they're probably feeling nervous. At this point, they're probably feeling excited, like really thinking through those things. And I think there's like a part A and B to this. The first one is eliminating pain points. So thinking about what are their problems? Like where are those areas that it's like, like,
00:41:48
Speaker
whether they're uninformed and they don't know what to expect. Like, how can I fill those holes and eliminate any kind of pain point? And then the second one is adding value and filling the holes with, you know, how can I exceed expectations? So thinking about what are the basic expectations of what this person is expecting from me? And then how can I go above and beyond? You know, I love like looking at businesses that I interact with, just any kind of business, whether it's, you know, my mechanic, or if we go out of town and say at a hotel,
00:42:18
Speaker
I love pulling, seeing what they do and being able to incorporate it into my own business. A couple years ago, we went to an inn that we had heard about in the mountains. We'd heard about it for a couple years. I think our expectations weren't super high, but with any time you check into a new hotel or an inn, you expect that you're going to be checked in by the person in the lobby and maybe shown to your room. That's kind of your basic expectations. We weren't expecting to be greeted with
00:42:46
Speaker
champagne and we weren't expected to be offered
00:42:49
Speaker
a tour of the facilities to show us where all the important things were. We weren't expecting a handwritten note from the manager in our room with a chocolate chip cookie. Those were all things that just added crazy value and made me say, wow, off the bat before I'd even spent more than 15 minutes there. And of course, I took to social media and wanted to tell everyone about this. This is awesome. Y'all need to come stay here. And I think that's a lot of why the client experience is so important.
00:43:17
Speaker
know as far as even what i do and they're gonna talk about a business if they were really really bad. Or if they just were remarkable and the in between businesses that i interact with like they're forgettable so. It's either like the ones that that just are terrible i wanna go tell everyone about i don't ever use and this is horrible or these people are amazing like you have to go and use the service.
00:43:41
Speaker
So that's kind of what has driven a lot of the things that we do. So anyway, adding value in the places that you can see holes to be. Number three, I think making an action plan, you know, I think this can be really overwhelming, especially if you're starting.
Streamlining Workflow and Tools
00:43:55
Speaker
From not much, as far as your experience goes, I think you need a plan of what you're going to do looking after you've filled those holes on paper, making a plan for what's most important, kind of like maybe choosing three things. Like it's taken me.
00:44:10
Speaker
a long time to get our client experience to the place that it has. It does not have to start out. It's not going to start out being, you know, killing it right away. And so I think maybe getting a quick win and thinking like, okay, I can do, I can write this welcome email today and I can get that done and move my client experience forward. But I think making a plan and making some decisions on what's most important. It has to happen. And then number four is creating and following a workflow.
00:44:38
Speaker
I think that you need a repeatable system to be consistent because especially once you're in the middle for wedding, people that are in the wedding world, once it is high season and you're going crazy just trying to do the work and turn it around, these things are going to fall through the cracks unless you have a system that when this thing happens, this thing then happens.
00:45:01
Speaker
And you know, you've got it all written down and you can follow workflow, whether that's old school, like me, still, I don't have my workflow in dead Sato, which we're going to try to move toward that this year, but just something that is written down from start to finish, like a checklist of sorts that kind of says, this is what is going to happen at this point. And then staying on top of it, if you can't do it yourself, like if there's room to, I don't know what I would do without my studio manager to help me with all these things and keep on top of all these things. So.
00:45:28
Speaker
you know, if you're needing help doing this, then I highly recommend doing that. But yeah, so those are kind of the things that I would recommend.
00:45:35
Speaker
know, for people that are wanting to improve what they're doing. Yeah. And I really, I mean, I like how practical each of those steps are. And then I also want to point out too, like how inexpensive it is to be remarkable, right? I mean, really, when you were talking about the in, for instance, like, you know, per glass of champagne, chocolate chip cookie, tour, the facility is free, like all of those things are inexpensive.
00:45:58
Speaker
They were done in what, probably the first 15 minutes that you were there, right? And I mean like what did it cost them? Probably a couple, probably $10, you know, probably between the glasses of champagne and the chocolate chip cookie, you know, of course there's some time in there writing the handwritten note and all of that. I imagine it wasn't pages long though, you know, it's probably pretty, you know, pretty straightforward. Something that could be, like you said later in your experience, repeatable, you know, in falling a workflow. But just in that short period of time, you know, they became remarkable.
00:46:26
Speaker
And it was, you know, probably something that, you know, like you said, you went on social media and shared about when people ask about recommendations, probably keeps you top of mind. And then even something like Dipsado, I want to say Dipsado is like about 30 bucks a month, less than that if you pay annually. And like you said, you can put your entire workflow in there, which is awesome. Something we haven't done as well. You know, we've done it primarily with the, you know, but that's the thing is I love Dipsado and we really just use it for payments and contracts right now.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that's huge alone, but I'm not alone that I'm not fully utilizing it. Yeah, so I mean, I would pay $30 a month just for the payments and contracts portion of things, you know, but you could put your entire workflow in there and studio manager, you know, if you are getting to the point, I think where you need extra help.
00:47:12
Speaker
but you can't maybe afford somebody like a studio manager. There are so many, we had Stacey Krollo on the show recently, but she has a virtual assistant service. You can find a virtual assistant. Yes, it's gonna be a little bit of an investment, but hopefully the return on that, just by paying somebody like your studio manager or a VA, it's gonna free you up to do things in your business that actually allow you to grow instead of being bogged down in the, oh, what is this?
00:47:40
Speaker
What did we say about this questionnaire or contract or whatnot? That's stuff that's being organized by your VA or your studio manager. Absolutely. I really appreciate this process and experience. I don't know if you have anything along these lines on your website, on your new website, launching, I guess it's not going to be this Tuesday when this goes live. But do you have any resources where people could maybe learn a little bit more about your process?
00:48:07
Speaker
I mean I do I think there's a couple of things at this point they're all free resources definitely you know on our blog there should be a little category that says you know education there's definitely some things that specific to client experience that we've kind of put out there.
00:48:21
Speaker
And we are offering our free like our full workflow like our start to finish checklist. And so that's a big thing that people may find useful that can definitely be found on the on the website. So awesome. I will link to that in the show notes so you can head on over to the show notes and find a direct link to that if you if you'd like.
00:48:40
Speaker
Cheyenne, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today about client experience. Thank you. Even just as we think through, this is so good because like I said, we're going to have a team retreat this coming weekend. And even though we don't run a photography business, I think there's just so many things that you can pick up across industry.
Conclusion and Resources
00:48:58
Speaker
So much good stuff to think about as we go into that meeting.
00:49:01
Speaker
And then also, you have another little one on the way. Yes, we do. Yeah, so you're squeezing this interview in before that. And I know that there's just always so much to be done before that. So thank you so much for making the time. Oh, goodness. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun. Like I said, I love talking about this stuff. I could do it all day every day.
00:49:21
Speaker
This has been great. Thank you so much, Davey. Awesome. Well, we'll link to your workflow. We'll link to all those resources and places that you can follow along with Cheyenne going forward. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DaveyandChrista.com.
00:49:59
Speaker
you