Over-delivering is an essential part of building a solid customer base for life but most photographers don’t do it. Over-delivering is quite simply done by you giving the client more than they expected in the first place.
So, for example, you’re a portrait photographer, you take a set of portraits and tell the family that the pictures will be ready to view online within the next 7 days. To over-deliver simply message them within 3 days telling the family their photographs are ready to view by doing this you have already exceeded their expectations.
Another way to over-deliver is to always give something for free. By giving something for free you will not be reducing your profit because the free item is already included in your costings when putting your packages together, you just don’t show it to the client.
So say for instance you’ve put a package together with an album, a USB key or even a canvas print with some small prints included, what you can then do is supply the client with 6 beautiful photo keyrings for FREE. The keyrings should display one of their favourite images on the front and your company logo with website URL on the reverse.
Clients will simply enjoy these little touches, they’ll hand keyrings out to friends and family while telling them how much they really enjoyed their shoot with you. They’ll love them because they are for free and totally unexpected, its these little gestures that really do count.
Keyrings, mini albums, desk frames and what I call portable gifts are great PR for your business because when people ask where the photographs were taken, your details are on the reverse of the keyring or etched on the pocket album or on the bottom of your photo mugs.
It doesn’t have to be an expensive free gift, it just has to be something that they don’t expect. Obviously, your free item or free delivery will be costed into your package. The more money each client spends the bigger the freebie. If they spend a couple of £1000’s on a portrait album and USB, you might want to include a free canvas.
The canvas they can clearly see from your photography price list is valued at £400. However realistically it has probably cost you £40-£50 to produce. That free canvas is going to carry a lot of weight to them when they recommend you to their friends, telling people how amazing the experience was, how you supplied their images in record time and were very generous to include an amazing free canvas worth £400.
When you have successfully over-delivered and you’ve supplied your clients with the products that they have brought, it’s the perfect time to ask them for a testimonial. You can pretty much guarantee an absolutely fantastic testimonial in return and be sure the will recommend you to all their friends.
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