At two special events recently, a couple vendors failed at their commitments (or lack thereof!). I am not at odds with either of these vendors, but this is a call for action. The other vendors had disappointed the event hostesses and their guests. I’d like to see vendors succeeding in their commitments to the customers. Though I cannot claim that I know every single detail of the proceedings, I know enough that I can only blame disorganization, lack of commitment, and/or not having the correct tools to be a successful vendor. I report here from the word of the customer.

At a special event over the weekend, I was finishing up my service, and the customer asks me, “Is the other vendor on your team? She never confirmed – we were not expecting her at our event!” I mentioned that this other vendor and I are independent, and she is someone who I don’t really know. This vendor stayed a few hours at the event and provided service.

Unfortunately, I expect that things did not go well when payment time arose for this vendor. Though I was paid properly, the customer asked me a few times for a discount, even when getting the balance of payment. And I did not stick around to find out how badly things hit the fan. Notice that in this situation, the vendor now had no advantage at all regarding payment – the customer will believe that she had all the right in the world to not give full pay, whether she was correct or not.

As a long-term practice, I confirm and double-confirm my services beforehand. To this customer in specific, I had emailed a full agreement of conditions, and exchanged a couple confirmation phone calls. We built this confirmation process into Event Lightning software, as I know how important it is in the course of booking events. So when it came payment time for me, there were no questions, even when it came down to hiring me an extra portion.

At the second event a few weeks ago, I was recommended by a mutual colleague to provide services to a customer. The event went well – in my view. But I was soon informed afterwards that my mutual colleague did not show at all at the event to provide services. My mutual colleague contacted me and mentioned that the customer never confirmed with her (though my colleague mentioned that she has provided services three years in a row at this event). Again, though I cannot claim to know every detail of what occurred, I report from the word of the vendor directly. It saddens me when I see a missed work opportunity for my colleague, and a customer who missed out on services. In this case, I can only imagine that my colleague did not keep track of this event, and did not follow up on the wishes of the customer.

With this frequency, it appears that communication breakdown is happening far too often than it should. To the world of customers, I’d like to know that professional vendors offer business and provide services in an organized and professional manner, and not disappoint customers at their events. We recommend Event Lightning mobile apps and software for improved communication and tracking your events.