The story: I had no idea where Charmaine Patterson lived in the country, but I promised to be at her front door by 8 AM the following day to pick up thousands of her family photos to digitize personally. After her four-year delay, I didn’t want her to risk another day. When I arrived in a Dallas suburb, I was met with a tornado warning—exactly why this needed to be done. Watch as Charmaine explains what happened and why none of her friends believe it!
Have you heard of any other companies doing this? A standout example of extreme customer service.
Why It’s Newsworthy:
Unmatched Customer Service: In an era of chatbots and automated responses, a company flew across the country to personally retrieve a four-year-delayed order. That’s next-level dedication.
The Nostalgia Factor: People have thousands of old photos sitting in boxes. This story highlights the emotional pull of preserving family memories before it’s too late.
Business Innovation: ScanMyPhotos does more than scan pictures—it reinvents customer care by adding GPS tracking to follow the journey.
A Feel-Good Story: Readers love stories that surprise and inspire. “Would a business do this for you?” is a great hook.
Why I Flew Out to Pick Up a Lifetime of Photos:
Disasters Don’t Wait: As a photo archivist, I’ve seen people lose entire collections of photo history in an instant. One USC professor planned to scan his family photos, but a disaster struck before he could. A California wildfire survivor lost their home, but not the 10,000 negatives we had received just before the wildfires in Pacific Palisades, CA. We even digitized a nation's 57-year history in photos by digitizing 347,000 film negatives to protect them from future hurricanes.
This is customer service at its best—not just emails and calls but showing up when it matters most. Here's my social media post about what happened. It includes a link to the blog story "A Mom Waited 4 Years. We Couldn’t Wait Another Day."
When a family in Texas found a four-year-old unredeemed ScanMyPhotos eGift card, we didn’t just say yes—I got on a plane, traveling from California to Texas, met them at their front door at 8 AM yesterday, and picked up the photos for SAME-DAY digitization.
By evening, her entire collection had been safely uploaded to her inbox. It was no fault of hers that it wasn't immediately used; life and things happen. However, I was concerned that a further delay could destroy all her family photos.
But here’s where it gets wild: Upon arrival, I was met with a tornado warning outside Dallas. It was a chilling reminder of why this mission mattered—disasters don’t wait, and neither should digitize irreplaceable photo memories.
This story tip isn’t just about business. It’s about what customer service should look like. In an age of automated replies and chatbots, sometimes the right move is to show up.
Would you be interested in covering this? I can share how we also used GPS tracking to let the customer follow the journey from pickup to delivery—proof that human connection is the small business superpower that corporate giants can’t replicate.
Mitch Goldstone
ScanMyPhotos
CONTACT: Mitch Goldstone, CEO & Chief Photo Archivist, ScanMyPhotos.com, 7 Corporate Park, Irvine, CA 92606, Ph: 714-906-4444, Email: Goldstone@ScanMyPhotos.com
