Wedding Business Solutions

Who was right and who was wrong?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Who was right and who was wrong?

In today's fast-paced digital world, how do we navigate communication preferences between businesses and clients? Are vendors right in pushing for phone calls, or should they adjust to the digital native’s preference for emails and texts? This episode challenges the traditional approach and sheds light on the evolving communication landscape in the wedding industry.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for insights into aligning your communication style with customer expectations and minimizing friction during interactions.

Episode Summary: 
In this episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast, I dive into an online debate that caught my attention. It all started with a wedding planner asking a restaurant about options for a rehearsal dinner. Instead of addressing the planner's questions about buyouts and capacity, the restaurant suggested setting up a call. This reminded me of a similar experience I had, where a call was suggested without directly answering my query. I explore different perspectives on communication and emphasize the importance of respecting customers' preferred methods. This episode invites you to rethink how we handle customer interactions and the value of clear, direct responses.


If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

So who was right and who was wrong? Listen to this episode. Find out. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. Here's something that happened the other day on Facebook and I wanted to share it with you because I thought it was a pretty straightforward thing from the way I saw it, but clearly it wasn't because other people saw it differently. Sounds like life, doesn't it? So what happened was somebody posted online that they saw actually on threads and that people were quick to attack the planner in the comments. I think the restaurant was in the wrong. They completely ignored the question, then tried to schedule a call.

Okay, so here's what they're talking about. The graphic shows this. The wedding planner sends an email. Hey, restaurant, I'm looking for a rehearsal dinner, options for 100 guests. Can you tell me if you do buyouts and what your capacity is? The restaurant replied, we'd like to call you and talk about it. The planner replied, here's what we're not going to do. Okay, So I saw this and immediately saw that the restaurant didn't answer the question. That's what I'm seeing.

And I had a personal experience with this. So let me share this because this will help you see my perspective on it. And again, you're welcome to yours as well. So I was traveling internationally and I use Square for credit cards. Many of you might use it as well. And their devices and their system doesn't work outside the US So if I go to Canada, I can't use Square. If I go to Mexico, I can't use Square. In this case, I was heading to the UK and I was heading to Ireland, and I knew that I was going to be selling some books, or at least hope I was going to be selling some books.

And I wanted to see if there was another option. I've been banking with Chase for many, many years. So I reached out and I emailed customer service at Chase, and I said, I'm traveling to the UK and Ireland. Does your mobile credit card processing work work there? Somebody replied to me and said, let's have a call. And I replied and said, if the answer is yes, I'd be happy to have a call. If the answer is no, there's really nothing to talk about. And then they wrote back and said, well, actually it doesn't work internationally, so we're sorry. See, it would have been a waste of both of our time to have that phone call.

And that's the same thing that I saw with this, with the restaurant. If they don't handle 100 people or they don't do buyouts, then there's nothing to talk about. Now, could the planner have replied differently? They could have said like I did to my bank. If the answer is yes, you do buyouts and you handle 100 people, let's have a call. But it's also possible that the planner just doesn't like to use the phone, as a lot of people don't these days. I mean, think about the websites that don't have phone numbers on them. Plus, I'm just. From the way they replied, I'm going to guess, and maybe I'm profiling, but I'm going to guess that this is someone who's a Gen Y or a Gen Z, right? Just because I've seen language like that before and it not the same language I would typically see from a Gen X, let's say, or a baby boomer.

Now, I could be wrong on that as well. It could be a baby boomer that wrote that. I don't think so, but it could be. But what was really interesting is the people that came to the restaurant's defense and were saying, well, the restaurant answered the question. And I looked at it again. I said, well, how did they answer the question? Because they didn't say they can handle 100 people. They didn't say they do buyouts. They just said, let's have a phone call.

And I was started to get attacked by people who were saying that, you know, why am I saying that? These are gen Y's and Gen Z's and they don't want to talk on the phone. I said, because that's the data that's out there. Sure, nobody wants to be put into a box, but there is certain data that says that digital natives, and by definition, a digital native is someone who's grown up with certain technologies. I'm a digital immigrant not because of my age specifically, but because when I started in the industry, in the wedding industry 30 years ago, I had a cell phone, but it was in my car. It didn't come out. It didn't go in my pocket. I didn't have mobile credit card processing like this. I would have to take your card and take the carbonless thing, you know, swipe it and, you know, get the credit card information.

And I took contracts on paper, right? And then we adapt. Right now I don't do any of those things because I've adapted, just like we always adapt. But was really interesting. People kept saying, well, the restaurant was right, the planner was wrong. And I said, well, the planner is the customer. And if the planner is the customer, just like with any of us, we get to dictate how we want to communicate. There are. Sometimes I live chat with people and I'm perfectly fine with that.

If you can answer my question. Other times I'll send an email because it's late at night or you're closed. I'll be like, hey, tomorrow's fine, I'll get an answer. Other times I pick up the phone. I did that today, trying to pick up the phone because there was no way on their website to do what I wanted to do. Therefore, they're forcing me to either email or to call them. Right? Where if I could have done it myself on the website, I wouldn't have needed to contact them at all. So they're forcing me into that now.

Do I mind calling them? No, but it's kind of a waste of my time. If I could have taken this, taken care of this on their website. So once again, we as the consumer get to say we prefer to communicate this way. I get text messages from people and I text them back. Why you chose to text me? You could have emailed me, you could have called me, you could have filled out a contact form. All of those options are on my website. You could have Facebook message, Instagram message, LinkedIn message. Right? All of these things, WhatsApp, all of them.

But if you choose to text me, I'm going to text you back. Will I change that to a phone call, a zoom or something else? Maybe sometimes it's, it's more necessary than, than others, but I don't do it right away because right away I'm adding friction to the process. So what I thought was really interesting here was people who were saying, the restaurant answered the question. What is, what's your opinion? What do you think? Right. Do you think they answered the question by saying, let's have a phone call? And somebody said, well, it was implied that they could do it. If they said, have a call, well, that's exactly what happened with my bank. And it wasn't implied that they could do it. Right.

I was feeling it was. But when I said, can you do it? They said, no, so don't. I don't think we can assume that because there was nothing in there that said, I can do it. Let's have a phone call. Now it's entirely possible the planner might have still said, no, we can do that conversation here because they're having a conversation, right? Or they might have said, oh, okay, you can do the buyout. You can do 100 people. Sure, I'll have a phone call with you. But it never got to that because they didn't answer the question.

They immediately tried to change that. And I'm telling you, this is happening a lot more these days than it happened even a few years ago, that people are getting ghosted more and more. And when I look and see, because we do a lot of secret shopping, we've shopped over 648 companies. I think that was the last number as of yesterday. Yesterday. 648 companies since 2023. And people are still going immediately for the call, immediately for the call and wondering why they're getting ghosted. It's because that person reached out digitally.

They want a response digitally. And you have to give them a reason to get on the phone, which is not talk to a salesperson. Reason to get on the phone is because there's information that you're going to give them that they want to hear. And you've kind of teased them about that. You've given them some little hints, kind of like when they give you a little food sample in the store and then you want more. It's the same thing. You want to give them a little bit and then ask for that change. Or as I've said and I've written about put it in the ps.

Right? There's a PS that goes after your name before your email signature. If having a call or resume or if you're a venue coming in for a tour is what you're ready for. And then give them a way to do that. Clicking to a calendar link or telling them to reply to the message or giving a phone number or something like that. But that would be a way to do it. But I thought that was really interesting. I wanted you to just bubble this up in your head. If you want to reply to me, please do so.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. But that was the entire conversation. Right? And I'll read it to you again so you'll have it fresh. The entire conversation was this wedding planner's email. Hey, restaurant, I'm looking for a rehearsal dinner. I'm sorry? I'm looking for rehearsal dinner options for 100 guests. Can you tell me if you do buyouts and what your capacity is? The entire reply from the restaurant is, we'd like to call you and talk about it, Planner. Here's what we're not going to do.

So think about that. Let me know what your thoughts are. Again, I'm not looking for right and wrong, but just perspective wise. It was really interesting to see people on both sides of this when we all look at these things from our own perspective. For me, it was pretty cut and dried. Didn't answer the question. If you didn't answer the question, why should I have a phone call with you yet? Thanks for listening. I guess I'll get off my soapbox now.

Thanks.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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