I hate the post office. I hate the hours, I hate the response time, I hate the entire thing. And if there’s one thing worse than the post office, there’s the post office in New York. It’s amazing how much of a difference one small letter can make.
“Your package is shipping by UPS.” OK. That’s fine. I can live with it. I’ve had the random incident here and there, but for the most part, they get the job done.
“Your package is shipping by USPS.” What a difference an “S” makes. I suppress the fear welling up in the pit of my stomach. I tell myself it will be alright. But the sweat beads and my skin grows cold. It’s a $1,000 order. That matters. Especially when it’s an order I’m looking forward to. I curse under my breath, and I brace myself. This is what I expect to happen:
1. The item will show up late
2. I will have no sense of control over this process
3. It will be delivered during an off hour, leaving me with a sticker on the door and forcing me to have to take a trip to actually pick the item up, which, based on prior experience, means going to the station, ringing on a bell at an unattended desk, waiting for them to find it, and sitting around watching people stand in line in misery as I do that waiting.
Woe is me. Now, I’m a sucker for mirrorless cameras. Have been since the first Olympus PEN. So I’m pretty eager to get my hands on the E-M5 making its way through the morass that is the USPS as I write this. Normally, I buy something. I wait. I don’t think about it too much. It eventually arrives. All is good.
But when I actually want something – that’s a whole different story. I sign up for the email updates. I check the box to get the text message updates. The tracking number gets a special browser window for me to refresh. Which, doesn’t work in this case, because, for whatever reason, it’s a special exception, and I have to track it through Amazon (Amazon – why have you done this to me? Did we not have a good relationship up to this point?). That means I have to keep typing in my very long and cryptic password. It’s annoying. Not that it matters. There are never any updates to be had anyway.
So this camera I order – it ships by priority last Friday. The expected delivery date is Monday. I make sure to be in the office the whole day through. No camera. OK. Fine. No biggie. I can wait a day. I’m a grown man. I come in a little early on Tuesday. The post office occasionally delivers early in the morning over here, so I figured it might be wise. Nope. Not this time. Not at 9. Not at 10. Not at 11. But by 4, I receive a text. Yes! It is out for delivery and will arrive “Today.” The clock ticks. Not by 5. Not by 6. Not at 7. For which I’m actually thankful, because they’re also known to leave packages just sitting at the door, which is not a good thing.
Day 3 hits. That’s today. Wednesday. Aha! Finally, now I can track it on USPS! Why I couldn’t yesterday, the day it was out to be delivered, I don’t know. But, alas, I couldn’t. I look at the updates for today. Apparently, it’s still out for delivery, and has been since 10:36 AM yesterday. I envision a lost delivery man wandering the streets of Brooklyn with my camera in hand. I hope he finds me. We are now 2 days late, there are no updates in sight, and I’m just stuck waiting, watching the minutes pass by. I am afraid to leave the office, because I’m sure it will be delivered at exactly the time that I do so. Will it come today? Who knows. Probably. Maybe not. Time will tell.
But this is my point. Aside from ranting a bit about what is a frustrating, if, in reality, fairly insignificant experience, I can’t help but think what it must be like for the couples out there. If I sound a little crazy over a $1K purchase, what is it like waiting for your wedding photos? A huge purchase for the most important day of your life? How eager must the couples be?
As a vendor, it’s natural to see business as business. To see it in terms of proper and normal. To see good not through the biased eyes of someone eagerly awaiting something, but through the calmer lens of the person who creates the product. And, sure, most clients will be calm and patient. But don’t you want them jumping up and down with anticipation? Don’t you want them to get a little obsessed? Imagine waiting 1 month. 6 months? What about being told it would be ready in 4 weeks after the wedding, then not seeing it for another two or three weeks? Getting an album a year after the wedding? Or hearing it shipped, only to find out it hadn’t, because you didn’t get a chance to drop off the package?
Game time is the wedding. But that’s not the measure of service. It’s just the mandatory stuff. You miss it, you don’t perform. Well, you’re screwed. And so is the client. And even at that, I’ve seen people show up late (my wedding, as a perfect case in point), I’ve seen people disappear at key moments, I’ve seen people walk out the second the coverage time was up, regardless of what is going on, and I’ve seen people shoot the day in flip-flops and a t-shirt, and I’m not talking about a destination wedding here. If that’s the wedding day, I can only imagine what the rest of the process is like. If you want to make a connection, don’t look to the big day. Do that part right. Get the pictures, treat people well, and respect the event. But look to the rest of the process. That shows the real commitment and care, and that creates the connection. Here are 5 lessons to learn from from USPS about managing your clients the right way.
1. Set up expectations properly
Project managers are outstanding at creating the proper expectations. Small business owners are not. The top pitfall? Not telling people what to expect and when to expect it. Give people accurate information and give them context for what you do. And don’t overestimate your ability. Build in a little wiggle room and over-deliver. People are much more excited to hear it takes 10 day and receive it in 8 than to hear it takes 4 days and receive it in 7. It doesn’t matter that that’s one day earlier in absolute terms. Happiness is a fluid thing. All too often, I’ve heard people talk about the benefits they conferred to their clients. Outperforming other studios. Beating various prices. But did the client even know about the other studios or the great pricing they received? If not, then you haven’t given them something to value. I didn’t even expect my camera at this particular point. If they said it would take a week to get, I’d have been fine with that. But being told it was supposed to arrive last Monday and not seeing it as of this Wednesday? Not cool.
2. Be available
Not picking up your phone? Taking a day to answer your emails? Not good. Even if you can’t get to people, let them know when you’ll get back to them. It’s a 24/7 world, and though people will be patient, they won’t if they feel like they’re being ignored. If I knew it was even possible to call USPS and that they’d do something or trace things for me, I might not bother to do so, but I’d feel empowered by that fact, and wouldn’t worry as much. Making yourself available to people doesn’t mean you’ll find yourself at the receiving end of a huge time-suck. It means that people won’t have to worry, and probably won’t even take advantage of that fact.
3. Keep people informed
People will forgive you if you’re running late. People will forgive you if you don’t hit the mark and things are stalled. As long as it’s the exception and not the rule. But not if you’re don’t keep them in the loop. No one likes being kept in the dark. It’s that feeling of being strung along. It’s an annoyance that gets under your skin. When you see “Out for delivery” 24 hours after the fact, what you really learn isn’t that USPS is keeping you updated. It’s that they’re utterly out of date.
4. Be predictable
How long will the line at the post office be if I have to pick it up? What time of day will the package come? During office hours? Before I’m in? Predictability gives comfort. Unpredictability creates tension. If you answer emails in 1 minute sometimes, 5 hours, others, and 2 days still others, there’s nothing clients can settle into. Give people the sense that they’re getting a predictable, reliable experience.
5. Show that your clients matter
This is the key to everything. Because when you add it all up, what you really get is a picture of an organization that just doesn’t care. Everything comes as too little, too late. The experience is miserable. The concern is absent. And you just feel plain bad for dealing with them. I didn’t even realize how much I dreaded USPS until I saw that Amazon chose to send it that way. But everything adds up. Every experience you have with your clients in the past, not just the quality of your images, will determine how accepting they’ll be, how happy they’ll be, and what they’re willing to forgive. Make sure to show them that they matter, and they’ll respond in kind.
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