(Even Once They’ve Booked You)

 

That gap between when a client books you and the actual event date is a critical time to maintain ongoing contact with them. With clients booking you months in advance, many things may change. It is therefore important to constantly check in.

Additionally, constantly checking in makes your client feel special and that your business is centered around making their event memorable and successful. You can create an email sequence then automate it using a CRM like honeybook or Dubsado to ease your workflow while ensuring your clients get regular messages from you.

Here are reasons why you need to maintain constant contact with your bridal clients.

1. To maintain a good customer experience

Consistent communication with your clients is the most important factor for continued business success. Simple gestures like sending a greeting card go a long way in enhancing the customer experience. If there is a holiday, you can send them a card to express gratitude to them for choosing to work with you. This act makes them feel special, valued, and most importantly, appreciated.

Constant communication also means that your communication line is open. Once you open multiple communication methods, you greatly impact customer experience, and they become loyal customers. In addition, their contentment will guarantee word-of-mouth referrals.

It’s also important to stay in constant communication with clients to provide customer support and ask for their opinions. You can also provide suggestions or additions to your current offer to ensure maximum customer satisfaction.

2. Stay on top of potential changes

Sometimes, your client may go through some challenges that may force them to change the date, venue, or services they need. Staying in regular communication with them allows you to keep abreast of any changes and enables you to incorporate them in your offer package.

For instance, if your client wants an outdoor event but the weatherman predicts harsh weather during that date, are you able to offer an impromptu hall or tent or additional seats for the event? As a venue service provider, you need to research the region’s historical temperature to have a realistic expectation on the day of the event and make any arrangements if the weather is not as perfect as you expected.

If you are a catering company, some guests may not attend the event, or the client may add more guests than they had initially communicated with you. Constant communication allows you to keep tabs on the guest list to provide enough food and drinks for the guests present. Providing too much food may be a loss on your end, while having less food than the guests will reduce your rating as a service provider.

If there are critical promotional and logistical issues, you can easily inform your client if you are regularly in touch. This way, the information does not come as a big shock, especially if you have been communicating various concerns with them.

For instance, if you have been communicating concerns regarding booking their preferred venue, then after a while, you establish that they cannot get that venue on the day of their event, breaking this news to your client will be easy as you have been preparing them for either good or bad news.

3. Ensure a more aggressive service provider does not replace you

The last thing you need is to be replaced by a service provider who is more aggressive than you. So, it is important to stay in constant communication with your client to ensure you are still in business. It will be a waste of time and resources if you begin planning for an event only to find out they have replaced you.

To ensure that you are not replaced, here are a few things to include when you communicate with your client:

• If you are in catering, ask them whether they or their guests have any food allergies or dietary restrictions.
• Ask them if they have included themselves in the guest lists, since most couples forget to do so.
• Offer food tasting services to showcase what you will be delivering on the big day.
• Offer overtime in case their schedule does not go as planned.
• Offer to book a hotel room block if you are in charge of the venue to cater for an increase in the number of expected guests.
• Create a list of songs to play and share it with them for feedback in case there are some songs they do not want to be played at their wedding.
• Offer to create wedding signage for their big day.

Ideally, you want to provide value to your clients as much as possible, so that replacing you is not an option. As a service provider, ensure to go over and beyond your clients’ expectations.

4. To get testimonials after the event

Testimonials are a great way to increase brand visibility. If you want positive customer reviews, consider having constant communication with clients. Every customer needs to feel appreciated and valued, and you establish these feelings by constantly reaching out.

However, you should be careful not to come off as needy or distractive. You can do this by ensuring that every message you send is useful and informative. For example, your client would not want to be regularly bombarded with messages of memes or funny stories, whether they are busy or not.

Keep your messages informative but not boring. Let them be centered on customer experience and meeting their needs. You can even ask about other aspects of their big day where you feel competent enough to offer suggestions. Once they are satisfied with your service and professionalism, they will not hesitate to leave testimonials after their big day.

Conclusion

Overall, the main reason to keep constant communication with your clients is to keep them informed on your progress regarding their event and also to learn if they have made any changes to the initial information they gave. Once you establish yourself as knowledgeable and reliable, you will be the go-to service provider in the market and have lots of word-of-mouth referrals from loyal customers.

Reach out to I Do Design Studio for a website that evokes emotion and makes couples fall in love with what you have to offer.