So, the wedding is over—phew—what a big sigh of relief.
Time to move on, right? Time to move on to bigger and better, right?
Wrong.
It’s time to properly offboard your client. A client experience doesn’t just stop once the wedding is over. A client experience needs to end in a way that makes your client feel truly special. They have been riding the “wedding high” for a long while and now that it’s all over, they might be feeling a little low. It’s your job to make them still feel special after the wedding.
Offboarding a Wedding Client How-To
This will do a few things for you. For one, it will help you create a lasting impression on your client. An impression so strong, they will happily start referring their friends and family too. And two, it will make you a better planner. After every wedding you do, you should strive to become better. Every wedding offers a lesson, and it’s important we take the time to analyze it so we can improve ourselves and our business. Horn-tooting time—if you need help with creating a strong Wedding Management System, check out my Wedding Management Service Planner Kit.
1. Send a Congratulations Email
Be sure to send clients your “Congratulations” email after their wedding. Even if the wedding didn’t go well, it’s a nice gesture. Bad weddings stink (I’ve been there, trust me), but it’s important you don’t just go hide in a hole and pretend nothing happened. It’s important we try to leave things with a “no hard feeling” mentality. If the wedding went according to plan and you can confidently say they will have good things to say about you, let them know where they can leave a review. Don’t make it a huge thing. They are probably still reeling from the wedding aftermath. Personalize this email as much as you can. Tell them how much you enjoyed working with them and what you loved about their wedding day. Make it special.
2. Ask for a Review
Seventy percent of people trust online reviews from people they do not know, according to Nielsen. A week or two after their wedding, go ahead and ask for a review if they haven’t already left one. In this email, let them know exactly what types of mentions you are looking for. For example, how was it to work with you? What was their reason for hiring a wedding planner and how you helped them with this pain point. Client problem, your results. This is the formula you need to remember. This is what potential clients are looking for when reading your reviews. When asking for a review, I tell them to contact me first if something was unsatisfactory with my service. This way we can have a two-way conversation and I’m not left with a “what the heck?” review.
3. Ask for a Referral
Offboarding a wedding client also means setting yourself up for future clients. Something we just need to ask for. This is a hard one to do, I get it, and oftentimes this is followed with passive language: “If you know of someone in need, please send them my info.” Stop that right now! You are an amazing wedding planner who rocked their day. Believe that. So when asking for a referral, be straightforward.
“Your day turned out so beautiful, I just know you have a friend who could also benefit from my service. I just know you want her to enjoy your day just as much as you did. Send her my info today and I’ll make sure she gets the red carpet treatment.”
Done. Don’t overthink it. If she does refer people your way, be sure to send her a little thank you gift.
4. Send a Client Survey when Offboarding a Wedding Client
Feedback is extremely important, even if you don’t want to hear it. This is how you’ll learn and grow as a wedding consultant. If the wedding went poorly, a client survey also allows the bride to get stuff off her chest in a professional way. If it’s all negative, be sure to apologize—don’t make excuses or put blame on anyone. Take responsibility for it. If the client was way off base, go ahead and ask for a phone call. If it’s all great stuff, job well done! But then look inside yourself and see if you truly agree. Since you had inside knowledge of the event, it’s time to do a little self-evaluation. Remember to send those review links if the feedback was positive.
5. Write a Wedding Blog
Be sure you write a wedding blog of your client’s wedding no later than after the wedding. You don’t want to forget all those fabulous details, so make sure you do it while it’s still fresh in your mind. You might not have the pictures back from the photographer yet, but those are easy to plug in once the copy is done. Inside my client worksheet, I have a “For the Blog” section. You can get your copy here. That way you’ll still remember the details. When writing this blog post, you need to remember to keep it SEO friendly. This blog post will really complete the client experience for your couple. It will also give you some Google and local authority, something all new wedding planners need.
Last Words on Offboarding a Wedding Client
It’s important to remember that just because a wedding is over, we still need to wrap it up in a way that will create more opportunities for ourselves. We want to sow the seeds with each and every wedding we do so that we can have a full harvest later on down the road. For more wedding management help, be sure to check out our Planner Kit.
