Do some venues even want your custom? rant!

Devil's advocate:

Maybe their wedding coordinator was out for the day and it was someone else covering, who did not know the answers to your questions.

Some venues have a set process for sending out packs, and don't have all the information electronically. Penshurst Place wouldn't give me much info via email, but posted me a lovely pack of information, which I brought with me to discuss when we visited them.

As for not getting a congratulations... eh, is that really a make-it-or-break-it kind of thing?

Hope you get all your questions answered soon

Venart has made a good point. I think they must get so many e-mail enquiries that they usually just send a pack out. When you go for a venue visit the wedding co-ordinator will answer all of your questions then.

My venue were quite busy with current weddings that I didn't get every question answered straight away when I had 18 months to go but now they bend over backwards and nothing is too much trouble. Don't discount them just yet.

I certainly understand the points you have made jojo2 and venart but I have to say I'm with the original poster on this one. I think if you are in a customer service based industry, you have to make sure that every enquirer, client, or prospective client is responded to and that you are enthusiastic about their business. I mean if they can't handle an enquiry well, what will they be like to work with throughout the whole process??? I work for an organisation that does events and weddings in addition to our other activities and excellent customer service means we have regular bookings and repeat clients. We are happy to send materials out but our standard practice is to email a pdf version straight away. At the very least, if they are busy, they could say "I'm sorry I can't answer your questions in full at the moment as we're in the midst of a busy period. Can I send you our wedding pack by post or email and follow up with you next week once you've reviewed it?"

Often, all you really want is the capacity and pricing to see if you can even afford it. I guess maybe I'm impatient ? but I didn't want to have to wait for them to get something in the post to me... plus, if it's not affordable or appropriate, then they've wasted the paper and the money! I had one venue who took almost 10 days to get me something and when they did, they hadn't paid enough postage so I had to go pick it up and pay the difference. By that point I had already made a shortlist and wasn't even interested anymore... you can bet I have not recommended them to others! I also didn't have time to meet with every venue I was initially interested in so I needed to do an initial cull - that's where getting the basic questions answered is really important.

I think often they are trying to get you to come down so they can "sell it" to you and so won't give you all the info until you're there meeting with them. For me, this approach totally backfired. When I was looking at venues, I had several who never responded or like the poster, gave vague responses. I ended up discounting them - there were plenty of other places that made an effort to engage with me and make an impression - before I had even met them - that I felt like I didn't have to chase other venues if they weren't interested or willing to make an effort. There was one venue we didn't choose who I felt treated us amazing from enquiry to follow up after viewing. It was hard not picking them but I sing their praises and recommend them highly. So it's also not just about your business but the word of mouth too!

Wow! I didn't realise I still had so much pent up frustration about this...LOL...it's only been a year since I was going through all that ?

Sorry, wrote the initial post in a bit of a huff!! but my points were pretty much what 'LEMBS8' has said!

I have to email venue's initially to see if
1. they can fit our guests and their capacity
2. if we can afford it
these for us are the two make or break points to an enquiry...

from every other venue we have enquired at we have receieved an email back within 1 or 2 days tops! and although a generic email i'd imagine they always start with a 'thank you for enquiring' or 'congratulations' etc although not essential i feel it sets the scene for good customer service! and then not only attach prices but answer any other questions I may have put that aren't in the pack.

Personally i feel that they are wasting time, money, paper and effort by posting me out a pack when my initial questions on price may rule out the venue straight away!

The way i see it, if they can't be botherd to take the time to answer emails and questions now then what would they be like once we have booked,
anyway i'm over it now haha, was a tad stressed this morning!!

Thanks! x

OP I agree, having worked in customer service for year it drives me mad when people can't even afford potential clients the common courtesy of getting back to them on time. I've also worked in sales and would always make sure to answer all of a clients questions. Any wedding supplier, or any company I'm thinking of using that doesn't reply to phone calls or emails gets discounted. When lookin for a tog I found a one with an amazing portfolio and the cheapest price id seen but as it took them 12 days to get back to me about meeting I didn't even bother replying

Which venue was it , out of interest? PM me if you want

I agree with you, I had a few places and suppliers like this, some just never bothered to get back to me at all! It immediately makes me lose interest and even if they got back to me a while later I would not have used them ?

On a slightly different issue, I contacted a caterer 4 times (telephone and email) about our wedding enquiry and never heard from them!

My friend recommended them as she is also using them for her wedding in May. Appears that some people obviously aren't that keen for knew business ️?️

We've since found another caterer that we are very happy with, and who is also good at getting back to you! x

I'm with you on this one. We tried to view a venue on a couple of occasions but it just wasnt happening. They were very unccomodating about times and also, they would only do Sunday afternoon viewings. When we finally booked a viewing they rang on the day to cancel with just an answer phone message, they didn't even keep trying to ensure we got the message, nor did they invite me to call back and rearrange. Needless to say we didn't book with them!

Don't really want to say to be honest! incase it's someones venue! and they weren't really terrible i just felt they were uninterested and i would imagine weddings bring them a lot more income than their usual day to day purpose (farm/tearooms!) so they should have taken more of an interest in my opinion but it's fine i just won't be using them! x

I agree that waiting for suppliers to get back to me can make me want to chew my hand off. I should have added to my post that I was already aware on pricing as their entire wedding brochure was available online to download. My enquiry was mainly about viewing as we knew they could accomodate our numbers and the pricing which helped, we just wanted to see the place and to be honest the pictures online didn't do it justice so really glad we did.