Unprofessional, No Customer Service or Compassion, and Incompetent
Based on my family's experience using Waters Tree Studios to live stream our father's funeral so that friends and family can be part of the service, given Covid limits on in person attendance, and Waters incompetence in handling the job, and unprofessional attitude after the screw up, I would not recommend using Waters.
The entire experience was very troubling and put more emotional stress on us then we should have had to endure.
In short, they screwed up the live stream of our father's funeral by failing to have sound during most of it, failed to quickly ascertain and fix the problem, gave excuses that made no sense (blaming wifi but the video streamed fine), and failed to be responsible and professional about rectifying the problem and making things right professionally.
They did NOT even seem to care that I was going to post negative reviews and send letters to most major cemeteries and mortuaries in Southern California about our experience and recommending they not use Waters. Most professionals would have bent over backwards to "make things right" with a customer.
At least 2/3 of the live stream of the service (50 min out of the 1 hr 20 minutes of the service) had no sound. Namely most of the eulogies etc. People were posting live comments asking about the sound almost immediately. It was at least 10 minutes into the service before Waters even acknowledged via a post that they were working on it. Again and again people complained and Waters kept saying they were working on it. 50 minutes worth of trying to fix it!
Obviously, they did not check the sound before going live, nor were they listening and checking during the service, nor were they competent enough to quickly figure out what the issue was and quickly fix it (or have a backup).
Since we were giving our eulogies and participating in the service, we did not know there was a problem with the sound until the end of the service when Waters approached us and said they had a Wi-Fi issue where the sound dropped out a few times. Like it was no big deal. Ok a little sound here and there. Seemed understandable. But later I learned there was no sound for most of the funeral.
I immediately called her and left a VM. She responded that she was at another event and would upload the recording later. (later? I would have done whatever it took to get it uploaded immediately. she had remote wifi after all).
Throughout the afternoon we got messages, emails or spoke to friends and family very disappointed that they could not be part of the service. We told them that Waters would be posting the recording with sound soon.
And despite her saying she would get the video with sound posted, 7 hours later, when I returned home and checked, it was not posted. I texted her and she said she was still working on it and would upload it soon. Working on it?
And then when she posted it about an hour later, it was at another URL (she said it was a Youtube issue). I had to ask her to put a link on the original URL, which she did but I have to say but for my looking for it I would not have seen it. Given it was now almost 10pm, we did not send everyone the new link till the next day.
Normally, one would not live stream a funeral. Nor would you hire a videographer to record it for posterity. But Covid, with the limitations on in person attendance and friends and family scattered across the country and not being able to travel, makes a live stream of a funeral the only way to share the experience and support the family in such an emotional time.
But to Waters, the failure was no big deal.
Did they immediately upload the recording with sound? Nope. 8 hours later they did.
Did they post during the live stream an apology to all? No.
Did they post any kind of apology or give us one we could send out to everyone? No.
Did they offer a refund or partial refund. No.
Did they do anything to make it right other than hours later posting the recording to a different webpage with a link on the original webpage that I only saw because I was looking for it? Nope.
They seemed to think the fact they were recording it, like the weddings they do, and they could post it later with the sound would be the solution . They were engaged to do a LIVE stream. Recording it for posterity was not the intent. Nor do people watch funerals over and over years later.
Waters might be competent at recording a wedding for posterity, but I would not count on them for anything live, nor for them to be professional if they screw up. read more
