Viva! Life Photography, Viva Photography Competition winner (NOT!) KEW, Nationwide

I've been reading a few of the comments regarding Viva Photography on here and am not surprised one bit.  I had photos taken there too and even though the experience itself wasn't bad, the post customer service was shocking.  We ended up spending a small fortune, which we weren't expecting the prices to be so high, but decided at the time that the photos would be worth it in the long run. 

After paying a few thousand dollars (!!), and coming away with nothing more than a small album, we realised that all the photos were in sepia and we weren't even that happy with the quality of the photos either - some were not terribly focused and others were not as nicely edited as you see in their adverts.  After speaking to them they told us "too bad" pretty much, and we were not given another call back even though they said someone else would call us back to see if we could get a screen saver CD which was promised to us from the start.

I was so disappointed with our experience in the end it leaves a sour taste in my mouth when ever I look at the album.

I ended up getting more family photos taken a few months ago (I found someone else) and went through First Memories Portraits - the lady there was so professional, came to our house and took better photos than we received with Viva (AND the photos were given on a disc for a tiny fee in comparison).  I was way happier and will now use her for any other photos we may want in the future.  I will never use Viva or recommend them (and have heard some other horror stories about friends being ripped off by them too.  BEWARE!!

There are a few issues that you've raised in this post that I'd like to address to both apologise for your poor experience and to demonstrate that your feedback (and others) has helped us to improve as a company...

Prices
Very recently (April 2011), our prices were adjusted, and we introduced packages and images on disc. Viva prices now begin from $95 for a 5x7 desk print and we aim to be transparent with our prices with our packages online http://www.vivaphotography.com.au/packages/default.aspx and having price guides at our studios. We offer low resolution images on disc with our packages - this is published to make it clear for all clients.

Viva Kew
This studio is now under new ownership, and we are addressing some of the past comments from clients - just like yours. Unfortunately, we cannot change yesterday but we can work on improving our service and customer experience today.

Competitions
You were presented with a consolation offer that presented you with a portrait shoot plus a discount. We take care in running our competitions simply and communicate with any runner-up winners that they have received this offer, in addition to keeping records of our lucky major winners.

$50 Deposit
Being a service industry, we take a $50 deposit with each appointment to hold the time in our diary. Should you wish to reschedule, this is no problem, however this is taken as a charge to cover the photographers time should an appointment not show up. This is a common practice for photography studios.

Apologies for this poor experience and I hope that the honest opinions, like this, can help Viva improve and deliver a better experience across all our locations.
Sincerely, Samantha