Wedding Business Solutions

Should vendors leave reviews for other vendors?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Should vendors leave reviews for other vendors?

Ever wondered if it’s a good idea to publicly praise—or criticize—your industry peers? What happens if things didn’t go well? Should you tell the world, or handle it privately first? In this episode, I share the upsides of supporting fellow vendors with honest, heartfelt reviews, and touch on why negative feedback should be handled with care—and conversation—before ever going public.

Listen to this new 8-minute episode for tips on when (and how) to leave vendor reviews that help grow relationships, reputations, and the industry as a whole.

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/


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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

Should vendors leave reviews for other vendors? 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. This is a listener suggestion from my friend Tony Winyard in the uk And Tony heard an episode that I did about reviews. The one about, you know, should, you should say is, not, was, and said, you know, what about doing one about vendors leaving reviews for other vendors? So thank you, Tony, for the suggestion. Thank you for listening and absolutely, absolutely. You know, when you think about the value that we can bring to our peers, you know, leaving a review.

Now, different platforms have this, so LinkedIn has the recommendations. There's other alignable has things like that where vendors can leave comments for other vendors. Google, you can certainly leave certain platforms. You can't, right? So like, you can't leave on the Knot or Wedding Wire. You have to have been, you know, the client of that person to do that. Right. Even other people in the wedding party can't leave her review on those platforms. It's.

You're not supposed to, I should say can't. You're not supposed to do that. But, you know, leaving a review to talk about how you love working with this other vendor, working at this venue or working with this, this group over there is an important part of just showing how you're part of an industry and part of a team. So absolutely, I think that's a good idea to do that. And let's talk about the two sides of this. If something didn't go well, should you leave a bad review for that other vendor? And I think this goes back to the same thing about when to post a bad review. In general, I have posted a lot of reviews, over 650 on TripAdvisor. I think I'm approaching 300 on Yelp.

And Google. I'm up there. I think they said I'm in the top 10% of restaurant reviewers or something like that, even though I don't post most of the places I go to. But yet I guess it's still more than most people. Before I will go post a bad review, I'm going to say something to someone at that business. So I think you, if you had a bad experience with another vendor, you know, is it better to talk to them first or is it, do you just go to social? And I always go back to what would you want somebody to do for you? You know, if the tables were turned, like, let's say you did something and it affected another person, another vendor negatively, and maybe you didn't know it. Maybe you're oblivious to it. Wouldn't you want them to tell you as opposed to going and posting a one star review on Google? I would hope so.

I would hope you would want to know if I have a problem at a hotel or a restaurant, I want to tell someone first if they handle it poorly or worse if they don't respond at all. If I'm not doing it on site. You. Yeah. TheI want to go and post that review. I got a survey the other day from my auto insurance company. I had had an issue and I was waiting for the survey and I got the survey because I twice reached out to a supervisor, twice through email and twice with phone messages and they never called me back or emailed me back. Now I'm going to tell you, I'm going to let you know I didn't do it on Google.

I didn't, I didn't do that. Maybe yet, I don't know, maybe it's yet. But I did try to reach out and didn't happen. Just had an experience at a Marriott property. I'm going to get the survey and I'm going to tell Marriott. Right. I'm not going to put it on Google on, on you, on, on TripAdvisor or whatever yet. If they mishandle it then I might.

But I think it's only fair to the business to let them know what the experience I had what the negative experience before and going and posting that. So I have seen gosh sometimes where you know, one vendor post a review about another. I've seen some that to seem the kind of thing where really that's where you took to do it. Like I remember there was one years ago where it was, somebody might have been a photographer was complaining that they didn't get the steak dinner, the same steak dinner that the, that the guests had gotten. And I'm thinking really? And you posted a review about that, right. Did you talk to the caterer or the venue about that or did you just decide to go and post a review? Because first of all, I don't know about you, but I just heard a bridge that got burned. That's what I heard with that as opposed to having a conversation, you know, with them offline, not at the event. You know, I always have snacks with me in my bag.

So if I don't get to eat or if you know the timing of me speaking isn't going to allow me to sit down and eat even though everybody else is getting food, there are power bars or whatever that I'm going to be able to eat. I'm covering myself. My job is to make sure that I am covered with that. I also have them for plane delays and things like that. Actually, yesterday I cleaned out my bag with my plane getting in three hour late and circling so many times, we're getting dizzy. So should vendors post reviews for other vendors? I think if there are people you absolutely love working with, then tell the world you absolutely love working with them. If there's somebody you don't love working with, don't work with them. Right.

But to go and post a negative review, I think you have, to me you'd have to get to the point where you've had a conversation and they've mishandled even that, assuming you approached it the right way and they've mishandled that. That to me is when like, all right, you tried, you tried. I don't know if I would go and post that negative review then. I don't know if I, I would want that out there, hanging there. Because I also think that part of that is a reflection on you. You know, the fact that you're going to go post that about another person in your industry, that could be a problem. I don't think you should tell things, you know, like if you, hey, I heard a rumor, whatever, that does not belong on social media because if you don't know it factual, that's. No.

Now if you just saw in the paper that somebody is in jail because they did whatever, okay, you can reference that, maybe say, listen, here's a heads up for you if you're thinking about that. Make sure you've seen this. And I mean convicted, I don't mean just, you know, indicted, I mean convicted, like done. That person is serving time. Okay, that's different. I know that's an extreme example, but I think the idea here of how do we support our friends? How do we support our industry friends? Well, let's do that. You know, let, let's, let's show the world and tell them why you love working with them on the platforms where you can. So LinkedIn, so Google, I suppose you could do that in a Facebook review.

So if you have the ability to do that, to support your friends, right? And again, do it from the heart. What do you love working? Why do you love working with them? I think that's a great thing and it could help their business if they do it back for you. Wonderful. So what I would do is say, hey, just want you to know in case you didn't see it. I, you know, I, I thought, I love working with you. And here's the review. Here's a link to it right now. If you want to say, hey, if you could do that for me, great.

It's like on social media, somebody comes to me and says, hey, if, you know, I like your page, would you like my page if I like yours? I'm like, listen, like my page. If you do, don't like it. Just to increase your likes. I want people to like my page because they do. I don't get people to artificially inflate my the numbers here on the podcast just to have a bigger number. My ego doesn't need that. I want people to listen to it and watch it because they do. Sure.

Tell your friends, please subscribe. Yes, please. You know, if you love an episode, share it. That would be great. I would appreciate that. But because you do not to artificially bump up a number again. I want to feed your family, not your ego. So going back to reviews.

Yes, definitely think about that. Are there people you just love working with? You show up at a wedding or an event, you're like, oh, I'm so glad that, oh, wow, that's them. They're the caterer or they're the photographer. They're the band or the DJ or they're the florist or the the rentals by them. I know this is going to be a great day. Tell the world. I think that's it. So thanks for the suggestion, Tony.

If you have a suggestion, Please go to podcast.Alanberg.com Click the Ask Me anything button and make your submission over there. Hit subscribe if you haven't already done that. If you can post a review on the platform, I think it's Apple allows it or, or on google@reviewallenberg.com wouldn't mind that either. Thanks so much. See you on the next podcast.

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


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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