When my father passed away, my stepmother sent me six boxes full of 35mm slides. The majority of the photos were from my childhood, and while not all have significant sentimental value, I figured it would be nice to look through them.
First, I went on eBay and purchased a used slide projector. Great idea. It was inexpensive, arrived in just a few days, and it worked quite well. But a few impediments quickly became apparent. Number one, I don't have a projection screen. Two, setting up a projector, hanging a sheet (that was the quickest solution), darkening the room and then getting the presentation going took a long time. Third, the kids just didn't want to sit through the lengthy process of going through a bunch of slides one at a time at my pace. Finally, even I didn't enjoy needing to go through dozens of slides to find the one or two I really liked.
So next, I read up on ways to get slides scanned. Scanning them myself was quickly ruled out. I would have to buy special scanning equipment, and it became apparent from my online research that quality could be an issue. Most important, I simply don't have time to babysit a slide scanner and do the necessary edits and adjustments. Offshore scanning services were the way to go, and a few companies seemed like they had consistently good reviews, with one of them -- ScanCafe -- standing out as the clear best value.
The ScanCafe website makes it very easy to set up your order and even creates a mailing label for you. When you create the order, you tell them how many slides you think you have (I had nearly 5,000), how many slide trays they are in (for me, it was around 25), and then they calculate an estimated cost. After you enter some info and they bill your credit card for 1/2 of the estimated price, the mailing label can be printed and you're good to go.
Unfortunately, it wasn't obvious to me that I couldn't place an order for all six boxes of slides at once. You have to make a new order for each box. So my first attempt resulted in only a single mailing label, and after a little online back-and-forth with customer service I realized I had to enter new orders for the other five boxes.
ScanCafe's process is relatively simpleI dropped the boxes off at the UPS store and waited. ScanCafe sent me an email confirmation when the boxes were received at their US processing facility, and then again when the scanning started in India a couple of weeks later. Finally, I got a notice that my scan order was complete (two weeks ahead of their original estimated completion date) and ready to be reviewed online.
ScanCafe gives you the option of rejecting up to 1/2 of the scans. At $0.29 per scan, with 5,000 slides, I liked the idea that I could quickly buzz through online -- faster than using the slide projector at home -- and reject any photos that had zero value. Some of the photos were fuzzy. Some were of animals or buildings I didn't recognize, some were repetitions of better photos. So I started the process of going through the slides online.
This is where my next problem came. The web site was so slow to load the photos that the editing process took forever. After only one of the 24 slide carousels, I gave up. While nearly 1/3 of the slides in that first tray were rejected, I came to the conclusion that I would probably pop a blood vessel or lose what little hair remains on my head while waiting for the scans to download so I could cull them. So I chose the "skip it all and check me out" option and was done with it.
For each of the orders, I made a couple of selections on format (I wanted them on DVDs and I wanted an extra copy for my brother), paid the remaining balance, chose the shipment method and completed the transaction. On the sixth and final, however, I noticed that something was different. This was the first order I had placed -- the one where I had thought I was submitting nearly 5,000 images on 24 carousels. I had significantly over paid, and was expecting a huge refund. Instead, I found that while the number of images had been properly adjusted to the actual quantity in that one box, they were still charging me for all 24 of the carousels that were really spread across the six boxes. So I had another pleasant email exchange with customer service, resolved that, and now I'm waiting for my DVDs to arrive.
I don't know how they will turn out, but I can't wait.
ScanCafe's in-process NPS survey (Click to enlarge)Oh, but there's something else here. After closing out each transaction, I was presented with an NPS survey! You can click on the image at the right to see a full size screen shot. Perfect: 100% census, clean design, just two questions, details tied to a specific transaction.
Here's the problem: I don't have my scans yet. So, what am I responding to? I can't recommend these guys yet. I have nothing. I have paid. I have spent a lot of time on the process. I've been through problem resolution. But I don't have my scans. So how can I give really good feedback that reflects the whole process?
I like what they've done. But how should they solve the challenge of getting good quality feedback from a large percentage of their customers once the experience is truly over? I don't have the answer. I just know that as good as this is, there's more to be done...