Across the globe, professional real estate photographers are turning to the services of photo retouchers. A quality overseas real estate retouching supplier can drastically help change a photographer’s work flow, thereby improving their overall ability to schedule more shoots, organise their days more fluidly, and ultimately improve their bottom line.

In this two-part series, we’ll look at why communication with your retouching suppliers is so vital. In part one, we’ll see how to establish a method of communication that ensures a happy and healthy business relationship. In part two, we’ll walk through the bumps that can commonly arise and discuss ways you can not only foresee them coming but handle them once they hit.

Why Good Communication Matters

Once you make the leap to hiring and working with a professional real estate photography retouching service or company, you must start thinking of it as a relationship. This company or individual isn’t just an employee — really try and think of them as a partner, or at least as someone who is working as hard as you to present quality images to your clients.
With this in mind, it’s easy to see why communication matters so much in the photographer/retoucher relationship — whomever you choose as a partner in this venture, you’re laying a lot of trust in their skills and professionalism in getting the job done right. And the way you communicate with one another will highlight all of that.

Get them On Your Platform

In today’s awesome tech-rich environment, there are dozens of ways that you can communicate instantly with your third party services. You should try to choose a company or an individual who is comfortable being on the same platforms as you. Skype, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, LinkedIn — are great for real-time communication. But when it comes to transferring multiple assignments overseas and overnight, full service platforms such as iMAGECLOUD empower real estate photographers. iMAGECLOUD transforms your workflow allowing interaction with different retouching partners across single or multiple assignments, becoming pivotal in not only your success but your clients and ultimately their vendors.

Make it clear to your chosen suppliers what your expectations are in terms of regular communication. If you expect to hear from a retoucher within 6 hours of initial contact, let them know. If you only want a confirmation of specific notes, then let them know that, too. This will help keep both of you very happy. Within iMAGECLOUD there are over 20 retouching suppliers which have signed SLAs publicly exposing their products, turn around and communication. Currently our support team is on-boarding another 13 retouching and 3D companies giving our members even more choice on pricing and products.

Location Doesn’t Matter

Ever increasingly, business, no matter what type, is a global endeavour. As the above covered, we’re in a tech-rich time — and that means that you don’t need to hire a retouching supplier who lives in the same state, let alone on the same continent as you. While real estate and property photography are region specific, your retouching supplier could be located anywhere in the world. Suppliers on iMAGECLOUD allow work to be done while you’re sleeping, ready by the time you’re awake, and delivered to your client with one key stroke. If you find retouching services based out of the Philippines, Sri Lanka, or Eastern Europe — and they fit all your needs for a strong professional relationship — then jump on it!

Summary

By respecting your overseas retouching suppliers as experts in their field and bridging these challenges, you create a positive working relationship that is to the advantage of both of your companies.

Contact us if you want to learn more about outsourcing the backend of your business, and to read up on Part 2 of this series : Fostering Healthy Communication With Your Retouching Supplier