Wedding Business Solutions

They don't want to talk on the phone!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Share episode

They don't want to talk on the phone!

Are you getting ghosted by clients when you push for a phone call? Have you considered that today’s couples might prefer messaging, texting, or emailing over talking on the phone? In this episode, I explore what happens when we add friction to our communication process and the importance of meeting clients where they are — not where we wish they were. Are your habits hurting your chances, or can a simple adjustment make all the difference?

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for strategies on adapting your communication to match your clients’ preferences and increasing your booking success.

@Uptin Instagram Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHdljlfORJO/)

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 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

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


Are you going to Wedding MBA? Use the promo code - Alan - to save $20 off your tickets, at www.WeddingMBA.com 

And don't worry, if you can't use your tickets this year, they're transferrable or you can hold them to use next year.

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

They don't want to talk on the phone. Listen to this episode. See where I'm going with this? Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I saw a crazy video the other day that somebody in the industry shared with me, and it's that Gen Z are getting classes, courses on how to talk on the telephone because they have to have interviews, which might be on the phone or at their job. They might have to talk on the phone, but that they don't know how to do it. Now, I don't want to make a generalization that this is all of Gen Z, but it's just an interesting thing that came up to kind of just put an exclamation point on the fact that so many people in our industry are trying to get couples to get on the phone right away and they're getting ghosted a lot because of that. And yes, I think it's because of that, because you're dealing with digital natives, and some of you are digital natives also.

Some of you are digital immigrants. A digital immigrant doesn't mean you don't like technology. It just means it wasn't there when you started doing what you're doing. Another thing in our industry, very simple, is, especially if you're doing weddings, every year, you and I get a year older. Your target audience doesn't get any older. They stay about the same age. That next customer that comes along is about the same age as the one last year and the year before that and the year before that. In the 30 years I've been in the industry, couples have gotten about five years older.

Not fair, but it's a fact. So if you're still wanting to get people on the phone, and I understand why, just like you want to get them in person, into your venue or into your office because it would be easier to close them, but you're having trouble with that. It's only going to stay the same or get worse than it is now in terms of trying to do that, because you're dealing with people where their preferred method of communication is not the telephone in general. Again, I don't want to make just overgeneralizations, but if you look through the generations, the baby boomers, they were using the telephone because they had to. There was nothing else there. There was no email, there was nothing else there. No texting or anything. Right? Then your Gen Xers, same thing, right? The technology came along there and all of a sudden there was all the.

Some of these other things in texting and now it's all the messaging apps and things like that. And there's so many, it's hard to keep track of it. But we you, as you get older, your preferred method of communication may or may not change. Like if you love talking on the telephone, that might just stay that way. And when you want to talk to a friend or a relative or a customer, you pick up the phone and you call them, right? I love talking on the telephone. I do more zoom calls than I do phone calls because that's the technology that works well. Today I'm having this face to face interaction, but just today I had two telephone calls with people. That's the way they wanted to do it.

Great. That's fine. I'm meeting them where they are. Just like your customer, you have to meet them where they are. But I thought this video just really highlighted the fact that who even would think somebody did? Obviously that you need to have a class to teach somebody how to use the telephone, right? Somebody who's just used to using the telephone. It's almost inconceivable that you'd have to teach somebody how to do that. But if you've never used a particular communication, you have to learn how to do it. Like when I had to learn how to use WhatsApp, I got the app, but I had to figure out how to use it.

And people are sending voice messages like, okay, what's this? Voice messages on the app. Okay, how do I do that? Do I want to voice back or do I want to write back? What's the proper etiquette on that? We have to learn that. Well, telephone is a very important communication device for many businesses, for many, many people. But if you know that your phone isn't ringing very often these days with people inquiring about their event, whether it's a corporate event or a social event or whatever, that's not happening. That's also an indication that that's not people's preferred communication method. And if you follow Shep Hyken, H Y K E N, one of the leading customer service experts in the world. His book the Convenience Revolution, where. Where he talks about, you add friction to the process and basically the customers go elsewhere.

And this can happen all different ways in our businesses, Just things that companies do to make it harder. From a website that's not mobile friendly to a contact form that's too long, or trying to force somebody to use a communication method that isn't their preferred one. There's a lot of AI chatbots out there now that just don't answer the question. And it's just very frustrating because I had the other day I was actually trying to tell Hilton that I had a problem with their website and there was no way to just do that. There used to be a way to just like report that or just send them an email here. I had to go past the FAQs. It didn't answer my question. And then I had to choose from a dropdown list of what I'm trying to email them about.

And of course that wasn't one of the choices there. So I had to just pick another one. So I could just send them an email to report that. Right. It shouldn't have been that hard. I almost gave up on it thinking, okay, but then I'm thinking maybe somebody else is having the problem and maybe, maybe it'll help other people besides me with that. Right? So where's the friction in the process to the fact that somebody needs to have a class on how to talk on the phone and that someone is likely to be your current customer who's planning a wedding. Right.

That those people, some of them, some of their peers, are actually taking classes so that they can talk on the phone, know how to talk on the phone, have etiquette. Again, inconceivable for me because I grew up with a telephone. There's always been a telephone in the house, and for the longest time that's the only way there was to communicate with the outside world. Besides going outside. That's what it was. So you might want to rethink. Actually, I'm going to say you do want to rethink that. If your way of responding to people who are inquiring digitally and digitally could be a text, an email, WhatsApp, messaging through social media, messaging through an ad platform like the nada, Wedding Wire or something like that, all these different ways that somebody can communicate if they are choosing that or over calling you.

Assuming your phone number is prominent on your website, click to dial and making it easy again, if someone is choosing one of those other methods, they're signaling to you. That is the way we prefer to communicate. Unless their message says otherwise or unless you give them a way to indicate otherwise. Some people have on their contact form preferred communication method. They can tell you phone, email, text, or if you have some other choices, you can choose one of those. So if you want to let them signal that, and if they signal email, email them. Now, I'm not saying you can never ask for that phone call, that zoom call, that in person meeting or tour. I'M not saying that.

I'm saying that if the only thing you're asking. And in our secret shopping of over 650 businesses so far in the last couple of years, what we're seeing is so many businesses are pushing for that call or that meeting or tour right away and you're getting ghosted. This is costing you money because by the time somebody reaches out to you, they already like what they've seen, read, heard, watched or experienced. And they've put you on a small list. And if you're going to chase them off that list because you're going to try to change that communication method right away, somebody else is going to make it easier. Or as somebody very, very succinctly put it on a Facebook group when somebody was complaining about getting ghosted and everybody jumped on the bandwagon, complaining somebody said they didn't ghost the one they booked, right? Because somebody made it easier, somebody made it more convenient. And that somebody should be you because it's easier to convert leads you've already gotten, then go find another lead, then go pay for more eyeballs to get another lead. So if you're trying to force people right to the phone call Torah meeting, put that into a P.S. send your message and have a conversation. No attachments, no links. That's what I talked about. And why are they ghosting me? And stop selling and help them buy probably all my sales books, right? Just have a conversation, conversation that they've started and put a PS after your name that says PS if you prefer to have a phone call, a zoom call or come if you're a venue, come in and see our venue. Click here if you have a calendar link or tell them to reply to the message. And that would be a way to say, hey, by the way, if that, if that's what you want, great, let's do that. And if not, we're going to have the communication the way you started it in the method that is convenient for you because we adapt to you, the consumer. You, you're not supposed to adapt to us.

So I'm going to put a link into the show Notes where that video about Gen Z that's taking classes just so you can see where it came from. I believe it was on cnbc. Somebody was interviewed on CNBC or it was on their channel or something, but I'll put the link there. So if you want to go see that video, you can, but it was like, wow, taking a class, how to talk on the phone. Just can't conceive of it. But apparently it's a thing. Thanks for listening.


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


People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Host