Frequently Asked Questions

  Frequently Asked Questions  
 
  1. You say Parker Franklin's software is free - what's the catch?
  2. You say Parker Franklin will provide free training - what's the catch?
  3. I'm a school photographer, doesn't that make Parker Franklin my competitor?
  4. Will Parker Franklin provide school photography anywhere in the UK?
  5. Do Parker Franklin do graduation gowning?
  6. Why is the Parker Franklin price list so complex?
 
     

  You say Parker Franklin's software is free - what's the catch?  
  There is no catch! Parker Franklin is a school and event photographic lab. Our business is printing your schools photography. If we can provide you, our clients, with software tools to help improve your business and your integration to our back end systems, then it also help us! So there would really be no justification in charging you for the software. We say again there are no one off payments or licence fees (annual or otherwise) for our software.  
     

  You say Parker Franklin will provide free training - what's the catch?  
  There is no catch! We do not generally find that our client photographers need all that much training and it is very often achieved over the telephone. If the client wishes it then we will also have one of our team assist them with their first job - again for no charge. We sincerely wish to build long and mutually beneficial relationships with our clients, so a bit of "investment" up front by us will be paid off in the long term. Also helping you use our systems effectively makes our work at the lab easier, so it really is in our best interests to help you get up to speed with our software.  
     

  I'm a school photographer, doesn't that make Parker Franklin my competitor?  
  No, absolutely not; we are primarily a dedicated school photography lab. We do service a very few schools ourselves for two reasons. Firstly one of our directors, Steve Parker, was already serving these schools before we set up the business and he continues to do so, as they are very happy with him. Secondly it is very valuable to us, for our continuing software development, to have a number of schools in which we ourselves are working with our own software in the real world. We do market directly to schools but our aim is to pass on any new schools to our existing client photographers, assuming there is one in the local area who wants the extra work.

We do our own graduation photography for colleges and universities (as opposed to schools) but even there we actually offer our client photographers the photography work itself, paying them a good daily rate - if you are interested in picking up any of this work please do get in touch.
 
     

  Will Parker Franklin provide school photography anywhere in the UK?  
  Yes if we possibly can. We do not usually do the photography ourselves (see schools for the reasoning) but rather give the business to our client schools photographers. These clients are scattered throughout the UK and we would offer the business to a photographer local to your area. If we currently do not have any close to you then we would look to find a local professional photographer interested in gaining the extra business. We would naturally require that they be CRB checked and a member of a recognised professional photographers association such as the BIPP and would train them up on our systems prior to any work being done.  
     

  Do Parker Franklin do graduation gowning?  
  No we do not do gowning ourselves, we only do the graduation photography and certificate framing. However we have worked with several gowning companies and would be very happy to organise the gowning along with the photography.  
     

  Why the Parker Franklin price list so complex?  
  The short answer is to ensure that you, the client photographer, gets the fairest deal possible. Most labs servicing schools photographers have a number of pre-determined packs that they offer. Naturally these packs are sold to you at a lower price than the sum of their individual components. The problem is that you are limited to the packs they offer - what if you want to add a calendar print to a pack for your customer? If (as is likely) there isn't an appropriate pack which includes a calendar print, then your only choice is to pay the full price for the calendar print. This is not very satisfactory and restricts your choice.

We wanted to put you in control, so you can design your own packs to suit each kind of event that you do. You can build your packs from any combination of our products. The problem was how to get them same cost saving with such a flexible system. The solution is to have a sliding scale of prices; as you increase the number of products in the pack the price of each product is reduced. We have tested this pricing against most of our competitors (and invite you to do the same) and have found it be very competitive. Note that all our prices include post or delivery costs. Read more...