3 Reasons Why You Must Exceed Your Wedding Clients Expectations.

Todays blog is to highlight the importance as to why we need to surprise and delight our wedding clients to build our business reputation and dominate our wedding niche.

I will be talking about:

• Wedding couples remember how you made them FEEL on their wedding day
• HOW do you provide an exceptional experience that surprises and delights?
• ​The Importance of Wedding Couple Reviews
• ​HOW do you build your Wedding Couple Review Portfolio?
• The Importance of providing an exceptional service on each and every wedding day

1) Couples remember how you made them FEEL on their wedding day long after they remember the service or product you provided them with. A couples wedding day is one of the most memorable and important days of someone’s life and so, as wedding suppliers we have a BIG responsibility on our shoulders to get it right!

​Gone are the days where you can provide a value for money service and have wedding clients raving about your business and lining up to share a positive review. It is an expectation in today’s market that all services provided by small businesses, are excellent and you provide what you say you will in your contract.
 
However, if you want to ‘stand out from the crowd’ and begin to dominate your wedding niche, you need to provide a truly exceptional wedding service that goes over and above your clients expectations. This principle remains your first priority, especially in a global pandemic, and your customers need to feel compelled to publicly say thank you to you. 
 
HOW do you Provide an Exceptional Experience that Surprises and Delights?

• Request honest feedback from previous clients and act. As they say ‘feedback is a gift’ and nothing truer has been said, than when it comes to building a first class, robust wedding business in today’s climate.

Create a short online feedback survey that your customers can complete after their big day. Keep the survey, short (under 10 questions), I would suggest around half the questions to be ‘on a scale of 1-5’ option) and then the other half to be open questions to capture as much information as possible.

Or better still, if you have built up a good relationship with your clients and feel they will be honest with you, ask for 10 mins of their time and ask the questions over the phone and make notes or record. This does come with a caveat though. Be objective when receiving the results, as if you are getting all 5’s and no comments, I would suggest that the respondent isn’t being honest or spending the quality time thinking about their answers.

Then with this feedback, you can make continuous improvements  and changes to your wedding business services and products to ensure you remain top of your game, by providing a delightful service that truly addresses your clients wants for their big day.

To download a FREE Wedding Business Feedback Template, click here.

get my free feedback template

• Give a gift or additional service that is over and above what your customer was expecting. Don’t tell your customer everything they will be receiving from you on their wedding day. Hold a part of your service or product back and present it as an additional gift/s for them, something that they will likely be really pleased to receive, something they weren’t expecting, but enhances the existing service you are providing. This taps into your wedding couples emotions, and they will feel indebted to you in some way, which leaves a feeling of loyalty toward you and your small business, something which otherwise may not have arisen.

2) You are What Your Customers Say You Are - The Importance of Wedding Couple Reviews.
Your reputation in the online space is an essential ingredient to achieving your version of success for your business. This is built through what other people are saying about you.

Fellow Wedding Suppliers, Supplier Directory write ups and shout outs all have a baring, but most important of all is what your previous wedding couples are saying about you via business reviews online. 76% of customers regularly use online reviews to determine which business to use and 52% of customers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations, which it is why your online customer testimonials need to be up to date and relevant to the products and services you are providing today to win new wedding clients for the future
 
Research also suggests that 96% of unhappy customers wont complain to you, but will tell 9-15 friends, which can be disastrous to a small business and could create masses of subsequent work to rectify the issue and save the name of your business.
 
This is why clear communication channels are essential when managing your clients wishes for their big day. Another factor in this to remember is the WAY you communicate. To receive honest and open feedback from our clients, we need to constantly self check ourselves, our non verbal communication, the language we use, the actions we take, to ensure we are creating an environment where our wedding couples feel at ease to say what they are really thinking and feeling. This will then ensure we can provide a first class, delightful service for them that caters to their wedding aspirational needs and wants for their big day.
(Stats from www.reputationrefinery.com).

​HOW do you Build your Wedding couple Review Portfolio?

• Request a review from your wedding clients upon completion of works. Research from the latest BrideBook Wedding Survey 2020 suggests on average, couples intend to write 7+ reviews of weddings suppliers they used after their wedding day. However, within 1 month of their wedding date they have only written 2.6 reviews.

This means that as wedding suppliers, we need to have a system in place to follow up with our previous brides and request a review from them in the places that matter. On your social media handles, on your Google Business account and on any Supplier Directory profiles you have would be some key places to ask for a review. You can then copy these reviews onto your own website too. To make it super easy for your client send them all of the links to the review pages so they can easily and quickly complete the task for you. And don’t forget to say a BIG thank you!

• Capture Different Types of Reviews. It is also worth considering other types of reviews as well as written online.

You could think about a ‘refer a friend’ through word of mouth, type set up where you offer previous clients some kind of benefit if they pass on your business details and get subsequent a new client from the transaction. Or an effective way of capturing customer testimonials is via video, this would look brilliant on your website as we as humans always love to see, hear and feel how people are talking about another service or product they have used.

​3) Ultimately, by Providing an Exceptional Services and Products, Enables You to Build a Thriving Business.
​Amongst all aspects that make up your wedding business, from marketing to sales and admin, to logistics and supply chain, to HR and finance, make your previous wedding couples your key focus to surprising and delighting them. ​

This will have a massive positive impact on your brand influence and dominance within your wedding niche, as well as assist greatly with your online marketing strategy. Make your previous wedding clients your marketing advocates by using their testimonials about how great you are, this will pay dividends!

Love Jen x
​
Wedding Business Growth Coach