I recently read an account from a bride who attended a post-booking event designed to introduce couples to elements of the wedding experience they had already purchased. She arrived excited. She left worried. The name of the company isn't important. What happened to the customer's confidence is.
The bride described disappointing food and drinks, as well as an element of the event she had specifically been told she would see that wasn't there. These weren't complaints from someone shopping around and deciding whether to buy. She had already bought. And then she did something every hospitality business should pay attention to, she went online and asked strangers to reassure her that the experience she had already purchased would be better than the one the company had just shown her.
That's the part that interests me. Businesses devote enormous energy to winning customers, marketing, tours, sales appointments, follow-up, proposals, tastings, contracts. Then the customer signs. But a signed contract doesn't mean the customer stops evaluating the decision. Especially in weddings, hospitality and other experience-driven businesses, there can be months, or even years, between the purchase and the delivery. During that time, every interaction either reinforces the customer's confidence or gives her another reason to question it.
A post-sale event therefore isn't simply an event. It has a job to do. If its purpose is to give customers a preview of what they purchased, introduce them to products or services, or make them excited about what's ahead, then its success can't be measured simply by how many people attended, whether the room looked beautiful or whether the evening ran on schedule. How did the customer feel about choosing you when she left? That is a very different measurement. Perhaps the food served at a preview event isn't identical to what will be served at the actual event. Perhaps a promised display couldn't be provided that evening. Perhaps there are perfectly reasonable operational explanations for every one of those things. But the business knows those explanations. The customer doesn't, unless somebody tells her. The business sees a missing display. The customer experiences a wasted expectation. That gap matters.
I've spent much of my career in weddings, events and hospitality. One thing I've learned repeatedly is that the customer's experience isn't determined solely by what a business intended to provide. It is also shaped by what the customer was reasonably led to expect. When those two things don't match, someone needs to own the gap. This doesn't mean every disappointed customer is right about everything. I've written before about the danger of allowing one negative experience or review to define an entire business.
People have different tastes, expectations and personalities. Businesses have bad days. So do customers. But one complaint doesn't have to define a business to teach a business something. That's the opportunity. Instead of asking only, Did we execute the event?, ask: What did we promise? What did the customer reasonably expect? What did she actually experience? Where was the gap? And perhaps most importantly: Who was responsible for restoring her confidence before she had to go looking for reassurance somewhere else?
A signed contract may mean the sales process is complete on paper.It does not mean the relationship is sold forever. In hospitality, especially when someone is purchasing an experience far in advance, you continue earning confidence long after you've earned the deposit. A signed contract can secure the business. It cannot secure the customer's trust. And the customer should never need strangers on the internet to restore confidence that your own customer experience took away.
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