An enquiry arrives. There is a date in June, around a hundred people, and a request to discuss.
Everything else is unknown. What kind of event, whether a venue exists, what the budget is, whether catering is needed, what the client has already arranged, whether they have done this before and who else is involved in deciding.
The planner books a call. It takes an hour, establishes the basics, and reveals that the budget is a third of what a hundred person event of that kind costs. That hour was the only thing anybody spent, and it was spent finding out something a form could have established.
The first failure: the form asks for a message
Which produces a date, a number and a hope, since the client does not know what else to say.
The second failure: the client is assumed to know what matters
Most people plan an event once or twice in their lives and have no framework for describing what they want.
The third failure: the budget question is postponed
Which is the single most consequential fact, and which is the one that makes most enquiries viable or not, as in event enquiries with a date but no budget.
The fourth failure: the venue status is not established
Booked, shortlisted or not started are three entirely different engagements, and the planner cannot advise without knowing which.
The fifth failure: what has already been arranged is unknown
Clients frequently arrive partway through, with some suppliers booked, and a planner needs to know what is already fixed.
The sixth failure: the decision maker is not identified
Weddings, corporate events and family occasions all involve several people, and proposals sent to one of them stall indefinitely.
The seventh failure: the date urgency is not assessed
A date eighteen months away and one in six weeks require completely different responses, and both arrive through the same form.
The eighth failure: the availability is not checked first
The planner may not be free on that date, which should be the first thing established rather than the last.
The ninth failure: the enquiry arrives at the weekend
Which is when people plan personal events, and is the pattern in date availability enquiries that arrive all weekend.
The tenth failure: the same six questions are asked every time
By a skilled person, on a call, repeatedly, for years.
The eleventh failure: the unviable enquiries consume the same hour
A planner cannot tell which enquiries are viable without the call, so every enquiry costs the same regardless of outcome.
The twelfth failure: the client experiences it as a sales process
Rather than as help, since an hour of questions before any advice feels like qualification, which it is.
The thirteenth failure: the planner cannot tell an enquiry from a research exercise
Some people making contact are gathering figures for a decision that has not been made, or for somebody else entirely. Establishing that early is not cynicism, it is the difference between a pipeline and a list.
The fix: collect the six facts before anybody speaks
An assistant that checks date availability, establishes guest numbers, event type, venue status, budget range and who is deciding produces a workable brief in three minutes and means the call is about the event rather than about the basics. The mechanics are set out in how event planners qualify enquiries with a chatbot, and the same deadline pressure in occasion wear enquiries with a date attached. Start at try, see features, and the sector view sits under event planners.