Hi Bridal Pros!
Help!
I do destination wedding planning and 99.9% of our wedding planning is via email with our clients.
It is absolutely a pleasure to work with the majority of my clients, but there is one particular client who is not only difficult (part of the job), but severely impacting my ability to plan with other clients.
Since signing the contract with her last September; she has emailed almost every single day without exception. She is incredibly indecisive. We will spend weeks thrashing out one idea, to be told that she has "changed her mind" and requires us to start from scratch with another concept. She will sign contracts with vendors, change her mind, and become irate when her deposit is lost. She will ask us to source a wedding embellishment (say a particular performer), then, once we have expended a considerable amount of time and energy to find that thing, change her mind because "it does not go with the look and feel of her wedding".
She seems to think we are having "fun" planning her wedding. In reality - her neediness is severely impacting on my ability to give other clients the attention they deserve.
In one of her tantrums (on the phone) she threatened to review us badly online if she did not get the wedding "of her dreams".
Her wedding is in July - and - with over 120 days of these emails to go, thought I would ask for some advice.
In order to try and stem the flow of emails and indecision I have already:
1. Responded to her emails within 48 hours, rather than my typical 24 hours. However, if she does not hear from me within the day I will receive an email saying "You have not responded to the email I sent this morning".
2. We had a mammoth video conference (lasting around 4 hours) a few weeks ago in a bid to iron out the details. I thought we had finalised the wedding concept/details after this. However, after emailing her the outcomes of this conference call - she has decided she wants another concept - again.
Yesterday I got an email from her saying "oh my god we have not spoken in two days".
I wonder if anyone can offer advice? I have remained polite throughout, but am reaching my wits end!
Views: 71
Hmmm... interesting situation. I have a couple questions:
Just thinking of things that may be in place or might help you from this point forward. There is not much that you can do to correct what has happened thus far but you can begin to lay the groundwork to try to improve the experience over these last few weeks.
You didn't agree to raise this girl. You're a wedding planner! Why should she have the expectation that you speak daily?
You need to fire this client. Immediately.
No matter what you do, she's not going to be 100% happy with it. She is zapping all of your time, energy and effort, and preventing you from being able to properly service your other clients.Her sense of entitlement is completely off the charts. I can assure you that no matter what you do, in the end she will still not be 100% satisfied, and probably demand a refund and trash you online anyway. Give her the boot. Today.
You've made every effort to grant her wishes. The best thing you can do at this point is to send her an email explaining that her vision and needs fall outside the area of your expertise, and that her needs would be better met by using another wedding planner. Then run as fast as you can in the other direction.
Life is short. There's no reason to tolerate clients that make our jobs miserable. Sometimes we're just not a good fit with someone. You need to cut her lose.
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