Customer Address Info

cybercrypt13 · December 1, 2005

How do I see a customer's address information? All you are giving me access to is their email address.

Thanks,

Andy · December 1, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

How do I see a customer's address information? All you are giving me access to is their email address.

Thanks,

Hi Glenn, that's correct. You can email them, We give you their first and last name, and their email address.

What I advise our pros to do is send a thank you email as soon as you can, and letting them know you are there for them if they have further needs.

BTW I hope you can forgive us if we're being too cautious with privacy, but honestly we're not using the addresses we collect for our use because we don't market to them, so there really is no ulterior motive.

cybercrypt13 · December 1, 2005

Andy wrote:

Hi Glenn, that's correct. You can email them, We give you their first and last name, and their email address.

What I advise our pros to do is send a thank you email as soon as you can, and letting them know you are there for them if they have further needs.

BTW I hope you can forgive us if we're being too cautious with privacy, but honestly we're not using the addresses we collect for our use because we don't market to them, so there really is no ulterior motive.

Well, its a little aggrevating that I can't see my own customers address information. Is there some reason that you are hiding this from me? Because it would seem I have just as much right to see that information as smugmug does since without my pictures on your site you wouldn't have made the sell...

Thanks,

Andy · December 1, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Well, its a little aggrevating that I can't see my own customers address information. Is there some reason that you are hiding this from me? Because it would seem I have just as much right to see that information as smugmug does since without my pictures on your site you wouldn't have made the sell...

Thanks,

Hello again Glenn,

Onethumb has said it best, previously:

Onethumb wrote:

Probably the biggest part of this problem is that we address many markets.

- We have Pros who direct their customers to their smugmug site. Those customers buy from the Pro who shot their photos, and are expecting to deal with them. This seems to be your category.

- We have Pros who do sales because people come to smugmug and search for photos on a particular subject (like Katrina, say). They may have heard of smugmug via Good Housekeeping or the Chicago Tribune or something. Or they search via A9 or some other search engine that smugmug feeds. smugmug is then a lead-generator. Those customers entered via smugmug, not via the Pro's site, and thus expect to deal with smugmug.

- We even get customers who buy photos, on a single order, from many smugmug customers at once.

But one thing we hear consistently from our customers, both subscribers and buyers, is that they're concerned about online privacy. They want to be careful about who they give their personal information to, how it's being shared, and what can be done with it. It's a sticky situation and one that doesn't have an easy answer.

Specifically, the customers we've spoken to and heard from spontaneously all agree: They want to give the sensitive information *once* and not have it be spread any farther than the entity they give it to. They're even leery of the fact that their banks now disseminate their information to their "partners", and they want to avoid that with other companies they deal with (including both their photographers and smugmug).

Logically, if we decide those fears are justified, this dicussion is over. Since we have to take their information to bill them, if they don't want it to go any farther, that's that.

But we understand the problem our Pros face. My wife is a Pro, and Chris shoots Pro work for fun. After talking with many of our Pros about the problem, including some that generate fairly staggering sales, we settled on a method that we think partially solves this problem.

Not everyone agrees, but the print-buying customers like it and many Pros feel it's an adequate solution. I'll be the first to admit that it's only adequate, and not great, but we haven't come up with anything better yet.

The solution? Exposing some non-sensitive information (name and email address) that allows the Pro to contact the customer to get their details. This allows the Pro to build a contact list of past customers still, but it also gives the consumer the ability to ignore or otherwise refuse to give out their sensitive information.

It is important to realize that when they're entering their sensitive information, smugmug is the brand they're looking at. smugmug is the name on the SSL certificate that ensures their data is encrypted and safe in transition on the internet. smugmug is the entity they're entrusting their data to and expect us to keep it safe, regardless of where they entered the site or who's customer they technically are.

I'm sorry if this doesn't cut it for you, but I have to keep all of my customer's needs in mind and this seems to be the best solution to a nasty problem. We have employees and customers who've been bitten by online privacy issues, and we take it very seriously.

BTW here's SmugMug's Privacy Policy

I hope this helps,

cybercrypt13 · December 1, 2005

Thanks Andy, but in my opinion its just another "Customers can buy from more than you, tough luck" response... I have to say they are getting quite old...

Andy · December 1, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Thanks Andy, but in my opinion its just another "Customers can buy from more than you, tough luck" response... I have to say they are getting quite old...

Hi Glenn,

I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. I can tell you that we talk about this issue constantly, and we're looking at ways of doing it differently. We try to be as helpful as we can to all of our customers, and to our Pros, and to our Pro's customers, too.

All the best,

Techman1 · December 1, 2005

This is just one of the things to research prior to signing up with a service. While I didn't like this myself, I did see it stated here prior to committing for a year with the Pro Service.

I've done just as Andy has suggested and send a thank you after each sale. This lets your customers know that you appreciate them and gives them a warm-fuzzy that their photos are on there way.

This also gives you their email address to market to if desired. I personally don't need my customer's physical address as I find marketing via email saves me money and allows clients to visit my site immediately if they prefer. It's a great tool for pro's.

Good luck on your future sales!

JimM · December 1, 2005

City/State?
Andy, maybe adding the city and state of the purchaser? It would be interesting to know where the order came from and would not really be compromising privacy? Just a thought.

Andy · December 1, 2005

JimM wrote:

Andy, maybe adding the city and state of the purchaser? It would be interesting to know where the order came from and would not really be compromising privacy? Just a thought.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for taking the time, and the suggestion. We'll sure consider it.

All the best,

flyingpylon · December 1, 2005

Techman1 wrote:

This is just one of the things to research prior to signing up with a service.

While that is true, the problem is that it's not spelled out on the Smugmug site. That's where the information should be, not buried in a thread on DGrin.

Andy · December 1, 2005

flyingpylon wrote:

While that is true, the problem is that it's not spelled out on the Smugmug site. That's where the information should be, not buried in a thread on DGrin.

Hi FP, I'm sorry but we're absolutely, clearly and positvely up front about this.

Here, in our privacy policy, which is on every single SmugMug page footer, and we also clearly state what we do and don't do here in our help section on reporting and payment. Both of these pages are publicly available and our terms / policy is in no way hidden.

I hope this helps,

flyingpylon · December 1, 2005

Andy wrote:

Hi FP, I'm sorry but we're absolutely, clearly and positvely up front about this.

Here, in our privacy policy, which is on every single SmugMug page footer, and we also clearly state what we do and don't do here in our help section on reporting and payment. Both of these pages are publicly available and our terms / policy is in no way hidden.

I hope this helps,

Andy-

You're right. I hadn't looked at the reporting and payment help page in a long time. However, this gets back to the issue about what smugmug is at the pro level versus what some people assume it is. I think some of that should be better spelled out on this page: http://www.smugmug.com/pro/

That page says a lot about "your own branding", "your own hostname", "your own prices", "your own search", etc. While I wouldn't expect a features page to say "Here's what you *don't* get", it's clear that there are enough misunderstandings that some kind of clarifying message needs to be added that explains the business relationship between smugmug, photographer, and customer.

Paul

Andy · December 1, 2005

flyingpylon wrote:

Andy-

You're right. I hadn't looked at the reporting and payment help page in a long time. However, this gets back to the issue about what smugmug is at the pro level versus what some people assume it is. I think some of that should be better spelled out on this page: http://www.smugmug.com/pro/

That page says a lot about "your own branding", "your own hostname", "your own prices", "your own search", etc. While I wouldn't expect a features page to say "Here's what you *don't* get", it's clear that there are enough misunderstandings that some kind of clarifying message needs to be added that explains the business relationship between smugmug, photographer, and customer.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanks - we'll certainly consider it.

All the best,

Customer Address Info

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