A couple of weeks ago I posted about aggravating business policies and touch points, and asked readers to tell us about the things we do that’s frustrating! We received three comments. One I’ve mentioned already, and the other two also raise important issues.

Katherine (not her real name) emailed her account manager to say she doesn’t like Photojunction. More important, she doesn’t like feeling pressured by Queensberry into using it.

She feels that if QBY were truly customer focused she wouldn’t feel this pressure and could continue in the way that’s suited her perfectly for the last seven years. She thanks Jo for her “never ending patience with me and PJ, but I do feel it is an overly complicated, non-user friendly piece of software.”

We really appreciate Katherine for sharing this. It’s hard to exaggerate the value to any business of someone who’s been with you for seven years. We all want things to work for her, and certainly understand why she might not want to change. How can we respond?

FWIW here’s my take on it. 

Seven years ago our industry was very different.

• Most of our clients still used film.
• Album companies didn’t print and bind.
• Digital albums were as scarce as hen’s teeth.
• Our clients printed locally and assembled their albums themselves.

Our product was unique back then. Even well before 2000 you could design the pages as you wanted – but you did so with pen and paper, and we “digitised” the design in-house. And we wrote earnest articles about how to design and sell from stacks of prints!

In the last seven years there’s been a revolution. Everything I’ve just described has been turned on its head.

It started with the very first US studio we visited. I remember Cara in Sacramento asking Heather and me, “Don’t you have album planning software for these?”

It seems to me that some of the people who did business with us before the “revolution” – and liked us as we were – wish we wouldn’t change.

But we can’t be the way we were because it was a different world then, and what we do now would have been impossible.

Photojunction and the systems we’ve built around it are how we make your stuff. Other suppliers have (and need) their equivalents.

Interestingly, we can still receive faxed orders etc, but we have to recreate them in PJ before we make them! What we can’t do in these tough times is ask other clients to pay that cost. PJ users already get their albums cheaper, faster and more hassle-free, and that can only become more marked.

So realistically, all we can do is ask for Katherine’s goodwill and forbearance as we help her through the transition. But…

I had the privilege of sitting in on a PJRemix album review session with Johannes recently and I was blown away by what I saw. Photographer and client riffling through the files… changing layouts… swapping images and opinions… adding pages… An intense, creative collaboration. Profitable too.

Cheers, Ian

PS  So having watched me sweat, have you thought about how your own customers feel? Another story tomorrow.

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