We Are Bonded, Uniformed and Insured
In a world where so many thing could go wrong, photographers are no exception to the rule. We are licensed and insured which should matter to you and your business. Most companies and freelancers in our business are surprisingly not insured. That means if they damage your property or even hurt someone with their equipment, it all falls on you. Don’t take that chance.
There Are So Many Ways to Screw This Up
Here’s a little secret: Google is unstable when it comes to making decisions. Don’t get them wrong- they mean well. It’s just that they are always trying to find what works best for what they want. In this case, they have taken a very good program (one that only allowed professional photography standards) and have opened the flood gates for any amateur with a camera phone to participate. The danger here is that you really don’t know what you’re getting. Who are the professionals? Who are the newbs who just purchased a cheap 360 camera and is trying to flip a few bucks on the side. Unfortunately, it’s probably 1 out of every 2 photographers who have little to no-experience or don’t go out of their way to deliver a quality product.
How Can you Spot Out the Bad Apples?
- They usually are willing to charge only a couple of hundred dollars for your tour. If it sounds like a REALLY good deal- beware!
- They don’t use a DSLR camera. Instead, they use a cheap 360 camera that puts out low quality imagery and pre-stitches the photo for you-making the photographer’s job obsolete. It’s the quickest $200 bucks they’ll ever make, to your demise. Your virtual tour will look fuzzy, poorly stitched as you move around, and you just paid good money for a poor product. Ask your photographer what kind of camera they use. In fact, ask them if they use a DSLR camera.
- Local Guide level: Ask to see their local guide profile on Google Maps. If they are less than a level 3, then beware. It means they haven’t done enough virtual tours to consider themselves professional. Our photographers are at level 5 or higher. See our profile here.
It’s All in the Details
It’s one thing to go into your place of business, snap a bunch of photos, stitching them together and collecting a check. At 360 Virtual Business Tours, we are not going to be the cheapest but we are not going to deliver a poor product. We spend that extra time perfecting your tour.
We do this by:
- Supplying you with a to-do list of things to do before our arrival.
- Surveying your place of business before we start, keeping an eye out for anything that will not look good in your tour. Things such as:
- loose cables
- garbage
- streaky windows
- poor lighting
- messy desks
- and much more
- We enhance your photos to make them as bright and as crispy clean as possible. We do this because we are master Photoshoppers.
- We properly stitch your 360 photos so there are no hard or jagged edges.
- We cover the hideous nadir with your logo. A Nadir is an unfortunate merging point where all the photos meet. If you were looking at a virtual tour, it’s at the very bottom and you could usually see the tripod legs. Most photographers just let it go, assuming that no one will ever look down. We admitedly used to do the same, but got tired of putting out tours that could be better. We now patch the nadir with your company logo. Yes, it’s extra work and not necessary, but we believe in going above and beyond from what our competitors offer. Below are some examples.
Examples of How We Go the Extra Mile!
Below you will see a series of photos that are what we call a “flat” panoramic photo. It doesn’t spin around in 360 just yet. So it may look a little foreign to you. But we wanted to show you what we do with these photos before we give them the “360 spinning” effect. Our point here is to show you that we don’t just take your pictures and upload them. We actually take the time to give them a premium look.
Photographers in plain site
All too often we notice that photographers don’t take the time to make sure they are not part of your virtual tour. We receive complaints from new clients asking why they can see reflections of the photographer. They end up not happy with the tour- the photographer is not willing to shoot a new one, and now they have to spend double to get it done correctly.
At 360 Virtual Business Tours, we take those extra steps to ensure that you will not see a reflection of us in any of your mirrors or windows. So you can always be sure that you are getting the most professional virtual tour, guaranteed.
We Clean Up the Photos
An example of what a typical company may notice but refuse to do anything about it. Sure, it’s just a door wedge, a normal thing you would see in an office. But we take the time to remove it from your virtual tour because we want your eyes to be drawn to what really matters.
We Remove What You Cannot
Having dirty carpets could draw attention to your prospects when they have the time to look around your virtual tour, but not so much when they visit you in person. A typical company may just let this slide because it would take more work to clean the photo up. We go the extra mile to remove sore spots from your virtual tour. You would never know it was even there!
The Unsightly Nadir!
Next time you experience a virtual tour, take a look all the way down. You may notice what seems to be a time warp of some sort. At 360 Virtual Business Tours, we have now begun patching that area up with your own logo. It’s a rather new technology, one we didn’t implement on our first tours, but one that you could be sure to have the next time you book with us.
