We’re back to sharing our For Photographers posts! With the craziness of the fall season, then the holidays, then our spring season, we put these posts on the back burner. But we’re back and we’re sharing the other side of our business with today’s post about our photography client experience! Since there is A LOT that goes into what we do to give our clients the best experience possible, we’re dividing it into 2 parts! We took to Instagram and Facebook and asked what YOU wanted to hear from us and what areas of need you as photographers have. We got tons of responses and have so many things we will be sharing over the next few months to answer your questions and help in whatever way we can! While some of the questions were technical, we also had many questions about other behind the scenes things in business like client experience, marketing, the process of booking clients, etc. We dove into most of the technical questions already (although if you have any more PLEASE feel free to ask!) and now we will tackle the other aspects of running a photography business (because it’s SO much more than just taking photos) You can catch up on previous For Photographer posts here:
Lenses for Wedding Day Details
Lenses for Portraits and Engagements
Like we said before, we’re going to be sharing a little bit of our client experience with you all today! We won’t get into too many details because then this post will be a mile long (and another reason why we divided it into 2 parts), but we will give you a gist of what we do with our clients to make this experience the best we can! So let’s start from the beginning…
From the very first email we get from a bride inquiring for her wedding date, we want to make sure that she get’s the best experience possible! We have made it a point to be personable in our business (from our blog, to our website, to our social media platforms) so that when clients book us, they know who they’re getting and have a glimpse of what we are like. Ideally, we want them to know and love us even before they book us! We meet with our couples via video chat before they officially book us so we can get to know them, hear their story, and hear all about their big day. We want them to feel like more than just “another wedding” we shoot and we want to get to know them as people!
Once they book us, the spoiling begins :) They get a welcome email with a link to their Honeybook account which is the client management system we use to make booking, invoices, and contracts a breeze! (You can get your own account and 50% OFF the first year HERE!) In that same email, they get an invitation to be a part of a Facebook group for our brides. Once they request to join the group, we welcome them and connect them with our past brides as well as other brides in the same planning season as them. We officially welcome them to the #kandvbride family with a special package complete with our Bridal Guide, some chocolate, and a handwritten note from us (because who doesn’t love a handwritten note?) Within this Bridal Guide they have all the tips and information about their upcoming engagement session and a TON of tips for their wedding day! We got this template from Katelyn James and made it our own with our images and wording to fit our brides.
About halfway to their wedding day, we send them a special gift just to remind them that we are thinking of them :) They are not expecting it at all and we almost always get a sweet message or social media shoutout when they receive it! And after the wedding, we also send over another special gift which gets us the most raves and messages! And I’m keeping what we actually give them a secret in case any of our future brides are reading this ;) So it may seem that all we do is give our brides gifts and, while this is partially true, there’s MUCH more that goes into our client experience than gift giving!
A few months after booking, we talk over a wedding day timeline with them. This assures that we have the adequate amount of time that we need to capture every aspect of their wedding day and also puts them at ease in regards to photography. The most import thing for us is to make sure our couples do not stress at all about photos on their wedding day! We ask them a series of questions like where they are getting ready, ceremony start time, and if they’re doing a first look to then build their timeline. Once we get that done for them and they approve it, we tell them to send it to any other vendors and that’s just one less thing our brides have to worry about!
Communication and responsiveness is a KEY part of our client experience! We are there to answer any questions they may have, give them vendor recommendations, and help them as much as we can in the planning process. About a month before the wedding, they get a questionnaire from us (that Honeybook sends automatically on our behalf) with a bunch of questions about their wedding day so once the big day does arrive, we are all on the same page. We ask for their colors so we can have our styling kit ready for details and ask for all their vendors so we can send the pictures to them and properly credit them on social media! It’s lengthy but it keep us in the loop with all the special details of the wedding day!
This is only a small part of our client experience and you can stay tuned for Part 2 where we will be sharing more of what we do in person during their engagement session and on the wedding day! We hope this was helpful for you and gives a little more insight on client experience! As always, if you have any questions about any part of this we are happy to share! Simply send us an email or reach out to us on any of our social media platforms and we’d be happy to share :)
