Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things go south on a job. Bad reviews can ensue, and your professional reputation, not to mention your referral pipeline, can be thrown into jeopardy. How you react makes all the difference.  

A few years ago, family and portrait photographer Jennifer Okamoto was running a “first birthday smash cake” portrait special at her studio in Mililani, on the island of O’ahu, Hawaii. The program was straightforward: Okamoto would conduct a portrait session with a one-year-old, who got to smash a birthday cake and generally have a blast. Okamoto provided the cake, balloons, a decorated set, and a safe environment in her home studio. Clients got to select the colors to semi-customize their experience. The promotion involved a $75 session fee with an in-person sales appointment to select and purchase the images.

Prior to one of these sessions for a little girl, Okamoto learned that the cake she’d ordered from a local bakery wasn’t going to be ready in time. Panicking a little, she rushed out, bought cake supplies, and made her own cake. “And it wasn’t great,” she recalls. “But I thought, the little girl is just going to smash it. It should be OK. However, the cake pictured in the advertisement the mother had brought in was a really fancy cake, so that was ’strike one’ on me in many ways. The expectations had not been met.”

She and the client moved past the cake disappointment and Okamoto captured some adorable images. “The mother said her daughter never smiled for photographs, but I got smiles. I got tender moments,” she recalls. “Everything was covered.” At the end of the session, Okamoto reviewed her pricing and scheduled the in-person ordering appointment.

When she came back for the ordering appointment, Okamoto recalls, “the mother was suddenly not happy with my pricing.” The mother was also stressed: Her husband was on active duty in the military and she hadn’t heard from him in a few days. He was supposed to join a Zoom call to look at the images, but he didn’t show up. “I like all the decision-makers at the sales appointment, but I made an exception in this case to be sympathetic to her situation and show her some compassion with how stressful her morning had been,” says Okamoto.

The client chose eight portraits that she wanted in a diamond photo box, and said she would be in touch to finalize the purchase. “By the end of that appointment,” Okamoto recalls, “she left really happy, really excited.”

A couple days later, Okamoto received a call from another photographer on the island who was part of a military wives Facebook group to let Okamoto know that she was getting trashed by an angry client. Okamato was eventually able to see the post: It was the client from the recent smash cake session.

Okamoto was particularly distressed because her studio receives a lot of business from military families stationed on O’ahu. If that referral pipeline dried up, she thought, it could mean big problems for her business. She contacted photography colleagues and mentors, at first to vent, but then to ask for advice. Photographer, business coach, and a mentor from The Difference Maker Revolution, Steve Saporito asked her a pivotal question: “So, what did you do wrong?”   

“I wasn’t thinking about it that way,” Okamoto admits. “I did know that the cake wasn’t great, but I thought it was OK. But what else did I do wrong?” After pondering, she had a realization. “My discovery call could have gone into so much more depth. I could have made a better effort to really understand her, a mom in a tough situation, raising a baby for periods of time by herself while her husband is deployed, and the pressures that situation brings,” she says. “I could have called her before the session and explained the situation with the cake and offered to reschedule.”

Then Okamoto took a deeper look at her process and understood that she didn’t have solid, repeatable systems in place. “I didn’t have a system where each and every client was receiving the same high-level experience,” she says. “I realized I needed to address that situation right away.”

And she did. Today, Okamoto has a dialed-in system with multiple communications via text, email, and phone prior to the portrait session. She makes sure to talk to her clients, get them excited about their upcoming experience, and address any concerns ahead of time. She talks about pricing up front and during the session, and makes sure everyone is on the same page before she clicks the shutter. She’s also augmented her on-site experience, creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere with a private area to bathe the babies after the cake smashing. She puts up a “Happy birthday” sign and a customized welcome sign with the baby’s name on it. Two days before the session, and again the morning of the session, she sends clients a photo of her home studio with the address, to reduce stress and confusion. “The idea is to have a consistent flow so the experience is reliably high-quality, and every client gets an A+ experience, not just the lucky ones,” she says.

The changes have helped Okamoto stabilize her business and re-earn the trust of the military families on the island. The impact on her business has been positive, with strong growth and supportive client feedback since she’s implemented the updates. With her experience in mind, she offers advice to photographers who face—and all who want to avoid—negative reviews and publicity.

Look inward. If something goes awry, ask yourself, “What did I do wrong?” or “What could I have done better?” Own your missteps. Treat the incident as a learning opportunity rather than something unfair that is happening to you.

Go deeper. Try to understand the client’s life, stressors, and emotional state. Ask deeper, emotionally focused questions. Explore the context and the relationships involved so you can deliver what truly matters to the client.

Provide real value. Value is about emotion, not just the photos. Deliver an experience that aligns with the needs, wants, and desires of your clients. The client will perceive the greatest value in how the session evolves and how attuned you are to them.

Set clear expectations. Let clients know up front what you will deliver, what the session will cost, and what they will receive. Get them excited but also establish realistic expectations.

Standardize the experience. Create a repeatable system that is consistent from one client to the next. This will help you set and manage expectations, and also make your business much more efficient.

Communicate pricing clearly. When it comes to pricing, people often hear what they want to hear. Be explicit, and don’t leave room for interpretation. If something costs $500, say it costs $500. Then confirm the client’s understanding.

Accept that you can’t please everyone. Some people are just never going to be happy. If your best efforts to make a situation right aren’t working, then accept that you’re not going to change the person’s mind and move on.

Respond professionally. If someone is publicly criticizing you and your business, respond politely with verifiable facts that illustrate your side of the issue, and then let it go. Avoid an emotional back-and-forth that makes you look defensive and unprofessional.

Refocus on your core clients. Often, disputes happen when photographers try to stretch to meet the demands of someone who’s not an ideal client. Take persistent complaints as a signal that it might be time to refocus on the clients who appreciate you and value your work.

Use downturns to improve. If you are made aware of negative comments or reviews about your business, use gaps in your schedule to fix processes and enhance your offerings so future clients have a better experience.

“The key takeaway is to have the strength and confidence to look inward and just remember that we’re all human, we’re all flawed,” says Okamoto. “But we’re trying to do our best. When things don’t go right, don’t blame other people. Don’t worry about them. Just look at yourself, figure out what you can improve, and move forward.”

Jeff Kent is editor-at-large.