Leica WhiteWall Printing recommended by Leica

[Hyubie]

Wow, this happens?

Anyway, thanks to Bill's advise I just may sign up for Twitter if only to bring a Twitterstorm to someone who earns my ire. :tongue: (Somehow I find the image of thousands of birds tweeting against someone's window very photogenic.)

And, count me in among those who prefer email. English being my second language, I can definitely write it leagues better than converse with it. So email gets me a long way towards making sure I get my message across, whereas during calls, I've come across CS who -- once noting my accent -- speaks to me as if I'm a pre-schooler and thus assume that I did something stupid and I'm in the wrong. So email it is for me.

 

[KillRamsey]

That sucks.

Also, nobody said anything about "struggling."

 

[Lightmancer]

A couple of thoughts on media pressure:

The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm

British Gas #AskBG Twitter campaign backfires

...and this, from one of my own presentations on the subject:

"Customer Digital Excellence is the means by which a brand may interact successfully with their consumers where success is defined by the consumer and not by the brand."

...and finally a little story about the reach of Twitter. I was in That London the other day, early for a morning meeting. I stopped at a "Pret A Manger" - overpriced snack food chain in the UK (all that was in the vicinity, sadly). I had possibly one of the most vile bacon rolls I have ever experienced - so dry it turned to crumbs when you picked it up. With time on my hands, I tweeted a couple of adverse comments using #pretamanger. One was the comment that the restorers on the Mary Rose could have used half a dozen Pret bacon rolls to dry the ship out in half the time. I got a tweet back almost immediately from the Mary Rose museum saying that they would try that next time... Pret, on the other hand, took 24 hours to tweet a lame apology...

 

[Luke]

I am just flummoxed about what twitter does or how it works. #lukeisold

 

[dalethorn]

.... nobody said anything about "struggling."

True that nobody used that exact word, but there was reference to very small companies with limited staff etc., and a very small photo printing operation paying rent in Manhattan is struggling almost by definition.

 

[KillRamsey]

I would guess the opposite, believe it or not. I know little about them, but in their niche there is still a good chunk of money. And to be the recommended Leica printer... that's got to come with a price bump I would think. Plenty of small companies have a nice enough bottom line. Indeed, a high enough margin hides all SORTS of problems, ala what you're discovering. When it's raining money (relatively speaking), you have no reason to do anything but count it. When times are tight, you have to ask tough questions.

 

[dalethorn]

It's raining money at Leica now, and after calling them, I realize they're still serving their customers rather than swimming in the Scrooge McDuck money bin.

 

[KillRamsey]

So what did Leica say?

 

[dalethorn]

So what did Leica say?

The Leica guy said he would look into it. He understands what I presented, so he'll reply back before long.

 

[asiafish]

Very different than my experience. I ordered a print through the Whitewall service, and the estimated delivery was 40 days. I had the print in 9 days and it is absolutely stunning.

 

[dalethorn]

Very different than my experience. I ordered a print through the Whitewall service, and the estimated delivery was 40 days. I had the print in 9 days and it is absolutely stunning.

As is the case with reviews of products I'm about to buy, I like to read all the reviews, unless I can find a filter that returns just the correct ones. In dealing with Whitewall, all of my correspondence including the order went to Germany, and even the photo had to be shipped from Germany to the U.S. That alone should advise anyone in North America about whether they should consider a local vendor. I even contacted the Whitewall New York office and referred Leica to them, but they aren't even part of the order and followup process. The Leica manager said to me that he didn't know of any reason for Leica to recommend them under circumstances like mine and probably anyone else in the U.S.