I just want to send a warning out to all new moms out there considering baby portraits from this company. The letter should speak for itself. Bare in mind I have not heard ANYTHING back from there customer service department.
Canadian Baby Photography,
My husband and I were return clients to your company. We had purchased a mid sized package approx. 2 years ago of our first son (Tristan). We've recently had another little boy (Micah) and were thrilled to have the same quality and service we had received only a few years back.
We were absolutely shocked and appalled by a) how rude and intrusive your photographer John was, and b) how rude and extremely unprofessional your sales representative Scott was.
We will no longer be dealing with Canadian Baby from this point forward as we are thoroughly disgusted with the service we have recently received by these two individuals.
John (I apologize for not recalling his last name.) He was the same photographer that took Tristan's picture a few years back and at the time, he was impatient but manageable. When John came into our home, he was impatient from the start, rude and unprofessional, making such comments as; "this is the thing with you parents..." "You have these ridiculous items that you want in your pictures that I can't even use.... here look there's a tag on this end, how am I supposed to use this"? When my 3 month old cried, he abruptly said, "well forget you" and shouted over; "here, come get him". There was no professionalism, just impatience with no sense of enthusiasm The final straw for me was when he said, " well, we can keep wasting yours and my time here by trying to get your kid to smile for another 15 mins or you can listen to me and just rebook, because this isn't gonna happen,...yeah no way". Then he told me how he had to wait an hour and a half with the client before me and he wasn't going to do THAT again. This person acted as if he was doing me a favor by gracing me with his presence. He was bossy and rude. If I were in his studio, I would have walked right out the door. Regardless of however many years of experience he may have. There is a reason why we would go through such a company and pay for quality as well as the experience you bring to the table. We hoped to be treated with more respect.
When Canadian Baby called the next day to re-schedule, I told the csr of my disgust with John's manner and told her that we would not be dealing with your company. Your rep on the phone was very apologetic stating that she personally had taken a few calls regarding John's behavior and attitude, and offered Kendra assuring me that she is very good.
Kendra was fantastic. Very polite, professional and to the point. The pictures came out fine.
A few weeks later Scott, your sales rep came to the door. After looking over the pictures, he mentioned that he was told that we had had an "issue" with John. He stated that John was a friend of his and made such comments as; "yeah John does a good job but only seems to go through these 'issues' every 2 years or so" and then looked at us. (2 years ago John did pictures). He then commented that I MUST have complained to the company about John because they wrote "TLC" on his customer slip, and then proceeded to show me. He went on with showing us the pictures and I had mentioned that we were dealing with the bank the following morning and would be able to make a final decision on what prints we would like to order after our meeting. He rudely commented; "Well maybe you should have made sure that you had money BEFORE you made the appointment with Canadian Baby and I had to come out all this way". He commented; "Well clearly this isn't gonna happen tonight" and tossed the free portrait on our table and asked me to sign the slip. As I walked him to the door, he complained about the long hot drive to our home with nothing to show for it. Very distasteful as we never said that we weren't going to purchase any prints, we simply didn't have any funds until the next day. We wanted to examine the prints and discuss it that night and call to make a purchase via phone on which prints we were interested in.
Scott has called us 3 more times since explaining how he heard my husband and I discussing his and John's behavior from outside, how I planned to file a complaint and asked that we do not contact the company. I explained to Scott that I had set the expectations with the csr on the phone the day prior explaining that we would not be ordering that evening, but we very interested in seeing the prints. Scott told us that Canadian Baby would say anything to get the sales person in the door to get the sale.
He felt like we were "family to him" and that I reminded him of his favorite movie star "Jody Foster". That he would make a request to hold prints on file. When I asked why he said that Canadian Baby does not keep prints on file, he said that "they" just tell clients that they will be destroyed, that they really aren't.
He then gave me his private email and asked that I deal with him rather than Canadian Baby Photography.
We truly thought that for the price of the portraits the service and staff would match that. We are extremely disappointed in what we have seen thus far.
Dear readers, I have an UPDATE!
After 5 and a half months of hearing absolutely nothing from this company.... I have recieved a phone call!
A very nice woman from the marketing department of Canadian Baby Photographers called our home. She had explained to me that she had done a google search on the company for there own research purposes and came across the "Chick Advisor" website and straight to my review.
(( I have to say that this website is by far the most resourceful for mothers...and clearly it gets the job done))
Anyways, she explained to me that my complaint email came to the company and had been passed around and discussed about but ultimately, everyone thought that someone else had taken care of it, hense the lack in call back. At least she was honest and didn't give me an exccuse. She was very apologetic about it and offered me a free 8 x 10 for my trouble and also asked if I would take this post off the website or at the very least update it with positive feedback as Canadian Baby web support explained to her that only the person who put the post up on Chick Advisor ((me)) would be able to add/ delete/ update any information. I didn't accept the 8 x 10 as my youngest is now 11 months old and really what would be the point, but thanked her anyways.
I won't suddenly change my tune and say oh wow what great service I recieved. But I will be honest in saying this...
Canadian Baby Photographers DO stand by their reputation, as lets face it, really is all any company has at the end of the day.
I asked if I could purchase a cd for our youngest to go along with our oldest son's cd and she was nice enough to send me a free cd of all the pictures that were taken. He is now 11 months old and the pictures are of when he was 3 months old... but hey really, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot she could really do, considering that we never purchased any prints.
It is very seldom that a company is really willing to contact you personally, apologize to you verbally as well as a written apology and free gift with no purchase. I won't let a few ignorant people represent an entire company any longer.
Canadian Baby Photographers have proven to me and I hope everyone who reads this review, that they truly care about customer service.
I actually would recommend this company as well as do business with them again...
I hope this reaches everyone.
www.canadianbaby.com
These reviews are the subjective opinions of ChickAdvisor members and not of ChickAdvisor Inc.