Wedding Vendor Complaints
One of the many things I love from where I sit in the wedding industry is that I have intimate access to everyone. Wedding vendors will share things with me that they can't share with brides directly. Brides and families share intimate things with us they can't share with just anyone.
So instead of just listening to complaints, we like to cull out wisdom to be learned from the issues underlying the complaints. For wedding vendors it's often a simple case of brides not being vendors and not being aware of all that goes into the "business of weddings." Brides have no idea that for every wedding a wedding vendor books, there may be easily 10 or more sales calls, often requiring hours and hours of time, phone calls, and emails. For every sales call, that is hours not being spent either preparing for the upcoming weddings, gaining new skills for their trade, improving or updating their offerings, or simply being able to unwind and relax!
I asked a friend of mine whose husband does photography and while it varies greatly, 23 weddings a year is a number she threw out. If there are 52 weeks in the year, and many weddings don't happen in off seasons, you can see how weekends vanish, week days are spent preparing the post-wedding photos, or dealing with pre-wedding questions, and sales for the next years wedding season.
The irony of life is that to "pursue your dreams" requires a lot of other skills to get there. So whether you're an amazing photographer, but really bad doing "sales pitches", or you're a great cake baker but not so good at marketing yourself, the end result can be frustrated brides who are left uncertain about the wedding vendor or crabby at the perceived lack of poor service.
And coming out of the world of Human Resources, I can assure you that just because YOU have never needed the HR department until you have a benefits question does not mean everyone else isn't keeping the HR people crazy busy! So while you have "one simple question" for your wedding vendor, without being aware, your "one little question" may be one of 200 emails and 15 voicemails the wedding vendor is supposed to respond to BETWEEN the sales calls and actual work of the weddings themselves. And perhaps your question is so low-priority, the wedding vendor won't say that, but the actions will show that it takes two weeks to get back to you. This is simply the wedding vendor trying to stay afloat and meed the pressing needs of immediate weddings or of signing contracts for future weddings rather than, say, responding ASAP to a simple question when your wedding isn't for another 10 months.
But of course the questions are still there and the greater understanding may build empathy but you still want your questions answered!! So how DO you appreciate the hard work of wedding vendors and get your needs met? We address that too.
I'll keep building this article and wedding vendors, please submit your complaints and I will hold them confidentially but share the wisdom you have to offer.
http://www.thefirstdance.com/weddingvendorcomplaints.php
So instead of just listening to complaints, we like to cull out wisdom to be learned from the issues underlying the complaints. For wedding vendors it's often a simple case of brides not being vendors and not being aware of all that goes into the "business of weddings." Brides have no idea that for every wedding a wedding vendor books, there may be easily 10 or more sales calls, often requiring hours and hours of time, phone calls, and emails. For every sales call, that is hours not being spent either preparing for the upcoming weddings, gaining new skills for their trade, improving or updating their offerings, or simply being able to unwind and relax!
I asked a friend of mine whose husband does photography and while it varies greatly, 23 weddings a year is a number she threw out. If there are 52 weeks in the year, and many weddings don't happen in off seasons, you can see how weekends vanish, week days are spent preparing the post-wedding photos, or dealing with pre-wedding questions, and sales for the next years wedding season.
The irony of life is that to "pursue your dreams" requires a lot of other skills to get there. So whether you're an amazing photographer, but really bad doing "sales pitches", or you're a great cake baker but not so good at marketing yourself, the end result can be frustrated brides who are left uncertain about the wedding vendor or crabby at the perceived lack of poor service.
And coming out of the world of Human Resources, I can assure you that just because YOU have never needed the HR department until you have a benefits question does not mean everyone else isn't keeping the HR people crazy busy! So while you have "one simple question" for your wedding vendor, without being aware, your "one little question" may be one of 200 emails and 15 voicemails the wedding vendor is supposed to respond to BETWEEN the sales calls and actual work of the weddings themselves. And perhaps your question is so low-priority, the wedding vendor won't say that, but the actions will show that it takes two weeks to get back to you. This is simply the wedding vendor trying to stay afloat and meed the pressing needs of immediate weddings or of signing contracts for future weddings rather than, say, responding ASAP to a simple question when your wedding isn't for another 10 months.
But of course the questions are still there and the greater understanding may build empathy but you still want your questions answered!! So how DO you appreciate the hard work of wedding vendors and get your needs met? We address that too.
I'll keep building this article and wedding vendors, please submit your complaints and I will hold them confidentially but share the wisdom you have to offer.
http://www.thefirstdance.com/weddingvendorcomplaints.php
Labels: wedding planning, wedding stress, wedding vendors
posted by Elizabeth Doherty Thomas at
10:36 AM
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