High-maintenance customers can be difficult to deal with. They can also damage a photographer’s business with their time-consuming and stress-inducing behaviour. You know you’re dealing with a bad customer when:
1. An over-abundance of phone calls and e-mails pour in and each one is urgent!!!
2. They expect the photographer to work for free in exchange for a credit line. They expect unlimited usage of the pictures.
3. They talk down to the photographer, “Can we work faster?”, “Are we sure that’s the best camera angle?”, “Did we check to make sure everyone’s in focus?” and they demand to see the LCD review of every picture.
4. At a publicity event, they expect the photographer to help set up the product displays, hand out brochures and wear a neon yellow t-shirt and baseball hat emblazoned with their company logo.
5. After a company party, they scold the photographer for not knowing to get a picture of the CEO’s wife’s sister’s family who were sitting somewhere in the ballroom.
6. They expect everyone in every photo to look like a magazine cover model otherwise it’s the photographer’s fault and they shouldn’t have to pay.
7. After being promised free, next-day, rush delivery, they still call two hours later demanding to know where the pictures are and why are they so late?
8. They change their mind every day: “We want a picture of our factory. … We’ve decided we need an group portrait of our sales department. … Our new plans require you to shoot our entire product line on a white background or maybe a blue background or maybe another colour. … Our marketing people say we need you to shoot everything we’ve talked about. It won’t cost any more than your original quote, right?”
9. They try to negotiate the price down after the job is over.
10. They’re late to pay.
