what happened to the print guarantee?

dogwood

I have a pro account. One of my customers ordered prints and they arrived cropped, since that's the default setting on the order page and there's apparently no way for me to turn that setting off. Here's his e-mail to me:

"I got the prints in the mail today. Both pictures seem to have the tops cut
off. The one where she is wearing the black top is cut off just above her
forehead. Could you please have these fixed and resent to us."

Sounds reasonable to me, so I e-mailed help@smugmug.com and I'm told the customer has to reorder the prints in order to get his original order voided. WTF? What kind of print guarantee is that?

Smugmug sets the print orders to "crop" by default! Of course my customer ordered them that way-- that's the option he was given and he didn't know he could change it. I find it amazing that a customer uses the default settings-- settings I would disable if I could, but I can't-- to order prints, and when his order turns out different than he expected (after all, the photo he clicked on and added to his cart was not cropped), he has to go through the whole process again?

What happened to the smugmug guarantee? You know, the one that says:

"If you are unhappy with your prints or gifts, smugmug will reprint or refund your order, whichever you prefer.

Simply send email to help@smugmug.com within 30 days of receiving your order."

Look, I'm trying to handle this problem for this guy and find it completely unreasonable and downright rude to ask the guy to fill out all his information again, enter his credit card, and reorder. I'd reorder for him but oh yeah, I don't have his mailing address and can't send the prints to him!

Has the smugmug print guarantee changed? Is there a way I can turn OFF the crop option on print ordering so this won't happen? If the answer is NO, then why should a customer be forced to reorder when the crop option was chosen for them?

Yes, yes, I know about the aspect ratio but you know the average customer doesn't want that kind of explanation-- they just want uncropped photos-- even with a white border on the sides. They can always take a pair of scissors out and chop that off, but they can't exactly add the top of a head to the photo!

Can someone please explain this to me?

BTW: it's print order 155547

devbobo

Hey Pete,

Firstly, damn..sorry to hear that you and your customer have had this unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, Andy is the only one who can really handle this issue.

I will shoot him off an email so he gets it first thing in the morning.

Cheers,

David

grannyrobin

dogwood wrote:

"I got the prints in the mail today. Both pictures seem to have the tops cut
off. The one where she is wearing the black top is cut off just above her
forehead. Could you please have these fixed and resent to us."

What happened to the smugmug guarantee? You know, the one that says:

"If you are unhappy with your prints or gifts, smugmug will reprint or refund your order, whichever you prefer.

Simply send email to help@smugmug.com within 30 days of receiving your order."


Yes, yes, I know about the aspect ratio but you know the average customer doesn't want that kind of explanation-- they just want uncropped photos-- even with a white border on the sides. They can always take a pair of scissors out and chop that off, but they can't exactly add the top of a head to the photo!

Can someone please explain this to me?

BTW: it's print order 155547

I've re-ordered these prints. No-crop. 2nd day shipping. No charge to you or your customer. I'm sorry that the first order didn't turn out so well, but I have every confidence this one will be entirely satisfactory. (And when I find it necessary to place an order again, I mentally thank our engineers for all their hard work.)

Explanations? Um... I'll leave that entirely up to Andy.
-grannyrobin

Andy

Hi Pete,

Ouch, I'm really sorry you are unhappy with the service we provided you last night! I reviewed the help log, it looks like Toni emailed you at about 7pm CA time last night, with information regarding our crop and no crop. And *before* reordering, she said you can let us know, that the customer is ok with the white borders that will appear in a no-crop image.

No need to worry, we're on the job, and both YOU and YOUR CUSTOMER are fully covered by the SmugMug Guarantee: http://www.smugmug.com/prints/our-guarantee.mg

So, here's what the customer sees in the cart:


Here's what the no-crop option looks like:


The second photo is what our reorder for your client (again, at no charge) looks like.

Our records show that Robin on our help staff put the reorder on 2nd Day Air (at our expense). This all happened at a little before 1am CA time. Now, if there's anything else we can do to make you or your customer happy, please do let us know!

All the best,

Andy

EDIT: I see that our help desk emailed you in between, with instructions for you to ask the customer to reorder and we'd void the charge - it's actually something that we routinely do FOR you and your customer, I will speak with our help staff about that - perhaps that's where the confustion came about. Either way - there's NO charge for the reprints when a customer makes a crop or no-crop error!

EDIT: PS, if you want your customer to have 8x12s, we'll even do that, if you prefer. And if you'd like any assistance in setting up pricing for 8x12s, just let me know.

dogwood

thank you andy (and grannyrobin)
Andy (and crew):

Thank you for your assistance.

I completely understand the crop and aspect ratio and all of that. But I'm guessing this isn't the first customer who has ordered with the default settings and wondered why the photo is cropped. I'll have to take smugmug's word that people don't like the white strips on the sides of an uncropped image even more than the crop-- but I can't imagine they would rather the top of a head cut off instead.

As I mentioned before, a customer adds an uncropped image to their shopping cart, so it's no surprise they're unhappy when they recieve a cropped image-- even though as Andy shows it's clear to us what's going on. Just a guess, but on that print order/cart page, people who don't order a lot on the internet may be a bit flustered at this stage-- digging out the credit card, filling in fields, figuring out print sizes, colors etc. They just want a print of their daughter, after all.

My other concern is that not everybody checks e-mail and is on-line as much as most of us here. This customer e-mailed me last night-- he thinks he's dealing with me due to the website and fact I shot the photos and I've sent him a thank you and told him to let me know if he has problems with his order-- but little does he know I don't have his mailing address or anything like that (which if fine with me-- that's not my concern). He checks his e-mail once a day and expects me to handle this issue. If I send him an e-mail saying he has to re-order with smugmug ("who's smugmug? I thought I was dealing with photographer Pete Springer", this guy probably thinks) in order to get a refund on his first order, well he's not going to be happy and probably won't understand. The customer obviously doesn't get all this technical stuff-- he just wants prints of the uncropped photos of his daughter he saw on my website! How hard can that be?

I love smugmug, I love the service I get here, I love the ability to sell prints, etc, etc.

Ninety-nine percent of my customers figure out the crop vs. no crop option out-- but I'd still like to see "no crop" as the default setting on print orders. But if that's not an option, if a customer screws that up without knowing it, and contacts me because they're not happy with their order (and in their mind, I screwed it up), well, I sure wish there was another option rather than me telling them to re-order. Blab blab blab... this issue appears settled, just some thoughts for the next time it happens.

Andy

dogwood wrote:

but I'd still like to see "no crop" as the default setting on print orders.

You'd have to have images loaded for each size you sell, Pete. Or promote 8x12s, or other 3:2 aspect ratio prints. Or allow them, even

DavidTO

It is possible to order a cropped version of that shot without the head cut off.

Andy

DavidTO wrote:

It is possible to order a cropped version of that shot without the head cut off.

yep but then the feet would be chopped off (for an 8x10).

dmc

dogwood wrote:

Andy (and crew):... I'll have to take smugmug's word that people don't like the white strips on the sides of an uncropped image even more than the crop--
but I can't imagine they would rather the top of a head cut off instead.
...

I believe you would get more complaints if the buyers found that the 8x10's they ordered don't fit into their 8x10 frames (after they cut the white boarders off)

although the default crop is rarely "just right"... they might get lucky. (didn't in this case)

There is no perfect solution unless you have multiple copies of the same images precropped, some for sale at 4x6, and then the same picture pre-cropped, and limited to 8x10 sales, etc... the only foolproof way around it.

dogwood

that's what is great about proof delay
I actually resize and replace images based on the size they order. Yeah, they aren't going to print on the entire 8x10 paper since the aspect ratio is different, but I resize the height to match. Most of my images get some sort of slight crop before I post them anyway-- so even an 8x12 probably won't fit the paper exactly. But it's something I'll consider and I appreciate the suggestion.

Andy, trust me, I totally understand the smugmug view on this-- on one hand you have customers who want prints on the full size of the paper and on the other hand customers don't want crops. They want their cake and want to eat it too. In most cases, the customers figure it out. But you folks know as well as I do that some customers simply don't figure it out even with all the red crop outlines and red "adjust" buttons in the world! I honestly don't know a solution that will make everyone happy-- the smugmug solution makes sense to ME-- but then again, so does allowing pro account users to set no-crop as the default. But I'll bet you already knew how I felt about that!

Mongrel

I think...
this is where the 'hold prints' option comes into play.

Think about it-

You take a pic.

You edit the pic.

You crop the pic (if necessary)

You re-edit the pic (to sharpen it up after the crop)

NOW-

You upload EVERY SINGLE SIZE you wish to offer ....

Multiply that by one of my typical galleries of 350 pics X four sizes (4X6, 5X7, 8X10, 11X14) and you have 1400 shots to put into galleries :cry


Are you ready for the best part?

Here it comes....

YOU SELL FOUR (4) 4X6'S :uhoh :cry

Been there, almost 'done' that (I didn't actually upload crops of every shot).

Here is the "new math"-

Take the 350 shots\keepers from an event...

Upload one "resize for web" copy of each...

Turn on "delay printing"...

Sit back and wait.

If, no IF someone wants something, let them tell me exactly what shot, what size, etc. I 'll put the time into the shots that are SOLD, rather than putting ten times the effort into shots that MAY SELL.

It took me a year to figure this out. It was a hard lesson to learn, but a great one. I finally have my life back, and rather than spending time in front of my computer, I spend it on the couch with my wife or out in the yard with my kids.

If customers don't like it or can't wait, then , I still have my day job...

Andy

dogwood wrote:

Andy, trust me, I totally understand the smugmug view on this-- on one hand you have customers who want prints on the full size of the paper and on the other hand customers don't want crops. They want their cake and want to eat it too.

And in the rare (vs. all the print orders we do) cases where cropping is an issue, our help desk is there to help get things sorted, fast and friendly

DodgeV83

dmc wrote:

There is no perfect solution unless you have multiple copies of the same images precropped, some for sale at 4x6, and then the same picture pre-cropped, and limited to 8x10 sales, etc... the only foolproof way around it.

That is not the only foolproof way around it! If you think this might be an issue, simply set all of your galleries to 1 day proof-delayed-shipping. If you had that set, you would've seen that the client ordered an 8x10, and uploaded a version of the picture that didn't need cropping!

I guess ideally you would also contact the client and see if he/she wants it with white borders (probably not!), or with a cropped head (PROBABLY NOT!)....but if it were me I'd do it on a case by case basis. For the first picture I would upload a cropped version with no white-border which I think the client always prefers, and for the second picture I'd add the white border in Photoshop so none of the picture is lost.

We've got these advanced options, now lets start USING THEM

dogwood

not quite

DodgeV83 wrote:

That is not the only foolproof way around it! If you think this might be an issue, simply set all of your galleries to 1 day proof-delayed-shipping. If you had that set, you would've seen that the client ordered an 8x10, and uploaded a version of the picture that didn't need cropping!

I guess ideally you would also contact the client and see if he/she wants it with white borders (probably not!), or with a cropped head (PROBABLY NOT!)....but if it were me I'd do it on a case by case basis. For the first picture I would upload a cropped version with no white-border which I think the client always prefers, and for the second picture I'd add the white border in Photoshop so none of the picture is lost.

We've got these advanced options, now lets start USING THEM

Okay, so with the aspect ratio, it's impossible to give the customer an 8x10 of the image they request (as Andy correctly points out). So I'd still be cropping the image before uploading-- and they'd be getting a different image than they ordered.

Contacting a customer works in theory-- but again-- not everyone checks their e-mail as often as the folks here. What do you do when the customer doesn't respond to your e-mail about white border or not in time for your proof delay to ship?

I think you need to take into account that it's very clear to most people that they are ordering a cropped image (try it yourself-- it's pretty tough to miss)-- but some people still don't get it. And since I very, very often crop images just slightly before posting them, the aspect ratio guide doesn't always work.

Pondering this since yesterday, I think another idea is to proof delay the print and add a white border all around it so it still prints on an 8x10 sheet of paper but doesn't only have the white border on the sides. Personally, when I frame a photo, I mat it myself so the border is necessary if I don't want the mat to crop the image.

But I'm certainly open to other ideas. I still think a white border is preferable to a cropped print, but it appears I'm in the minority.

winnjewett

dogwood wrote:

But I'm certainly open to other ideas. I still think a white border is preferable to a cropped print, but it appears I'm in the minority.

Dogwood, What I have started to do is to shoot my photos a little bit wider than usual. That way, I have the freedom to crop the image however I like without having to worry about white edges, cropped heads or feet - unless I want them. Unless you are shooting with a 3 megapixel camera, there is plenty of detail to waste 10% or so to avoid unfixable cropping problems.

-Winn

Andy

winnjewett wrote:

Dogwood, What I have started to do is to shoot my photos a little bit wider than usual. That way, I have the freedom to crop the image however I like without having to worry about white edges, cropped heads or feet - unless I want them. Unless you are shooting with a 3 megapixel camera, there is plenty of detail to waste 10% or so to avoid unfixable cropping problems.

-Winn

This is the #1 thing I work on with new "digital" pros. They invariably are first poisoned by the measurebating and pixel-peeping that goes on out there on the internet photography frontier - but the undeniable truth is, you are 100% right, winn - there's LOADS of room in these files, from today's DSLRs and so step back, or zoom out a bit

Bodley

Andy wrote:

This is the #1 thing I work on with new "digital" pros. They invariably are first poisoned by the meausrebating and pixel-peeping that goes on out there on the internet photography frontier - but the undeniable truth is, you are 100% right, winn - there's LOADS of room in these files, from today's DSLRs and so step back, or zoom out a bit

I agree but it kinda smacks the sports philosophy of "Shoot Tight and Crop Tighter" in the face. I know the better I get the Tighter I want to shoot and I'm liking the results. I do run into the cropping issues much more frequently.

Let me say that the Print Guarantee is "Alive and Well". They are CHEERFULLY making one of my customers happy and it was absolutely no fault of SM or the printers. That's why I'm here - I dare say this would not have occurred at ANY other site be it EM, ZF ........

Hey Andy, Robin here's a great big thanks . If anybody ask "Who loves ya baby" you can tell'em I do.

dogwood

I agree

Bodley wrote:

I agree but it kinda smacks the sports philosophy of "Shoot Tight and Crop Tighter" in the face. I know the better I get the Tighter I want to shoot and I'm liking the results. I do run into the cropping issues much more frequently.

Let me say that the Print Guarantee is "Alive and Well". They are CHEERFULLY making one of my customers happy and it was absolutely no fault of SM or the printers. That's why I'm here - I dare say this would not have occurred at ANY other site be it EM, ZF ........

I've done some testing since my original post-- even ordered a couple of my own prints to see exactly how it works (I've done this in the past, but never hurts to refresh my memory-- and besides, I needed some prints).

Though I still would like the "no crop" to be the default, I have to admit it's pretty hard to miss the crop or no crop option when a customer places an order. But the drag is that when a customer does miss it, they seem to think you as the photographer messed up and sent them a messed up image (even though they're getting EXACTLY what they ordered). Originally, I was upset that the customer needed to re-order to get a refund, but the more I think about it, the more this makes sense, since they're the ones who messed it up in the first place. So as usual, smugmug is about ten steps ahead of me (you folks have obviously given this some thought).

I'm just starting to drum up a fairly steady rate of print sales, so I'm still learning and taking all this advice in. I'm a shooter who tries my best to get everything right in camera, so shooting looser is probably not an option (besides, with a 70-200 on a 1.6 crop camera, sometimes shooting looser or stepping back at an event won't work). Maybe once I buy a full-frame DSLR... But I'm definitely re-thinking the print sizes I offer and how I upload final images once people place an order.

Thanks everyone (especially smugmug) for addressing my rant in a calm and useful manner.

Andy

dogwood wrote:

Thanks everyone (especially smugmug) for addressing my rant in a calm and useful manner.

Pete, thank YOU for a great discussion, one from which we're ALL learning