Blog · Professional services
Event planners: let an assistant chase the vendors
The week before an event is mostly phone calls to people who are also busy. A lot of them don't need to be made by you.
By the CosVoice team · · 5 minute read
Count the calls for one wedding
Take your next event and count the confirmation calls. The venue, for access times and the floor plan. The caterer, for final numbers and dietary counts. The florist, for the delivery slot. Rentals, for chairs, linens and pickup. Then the band, the cake, the transport, the AV tech. Now count how many of those people you'll reach on the first try. Every miss becomes a callback, and the callback arrives while you're on a site visit for a different client.
This is where an event planner assistant earns its keep, human or AI. The calls are outbound and specific, and the answer is a fact: a time, a count, a name. You can hand those over. What you can't hand over is the judgment about what to do when the answer comes back wrong. We'll get to that.
The venue
Venue calls are about times and access. When can vendors load in? Which entrance? Is the room being turned over from a lunch that day, and when will it be clear? Where does the rentals truck park? What's the hard finish, and when does the music have to stop?
These are good calls to delegate, because the venue coordinator is answering from a sheet. Give the assistant the event name, the date and your list of questions. It says it's calling on your behalf, asks them in order and writes the answers down. If the coordinator asks whether she's talking to an AI, it says yes.
The caterer
Final numbers are the call with a deadline on it. Caterers want the count some days ahead, and changes after that cost money. The call itself is short: final guest count, vegetarian and vegan meals, children's meals, vendor meals for the band and the photographer, and the service time.
Allergies need care. The assistant passes on the guest's exact words, "coeliac" or "severe nut allergy", as you gave them, and writes down what the caterer says back. It doesn't offer a view on whether a dish is safe. That's between the caterer's kitchen and you.
The florist and the rentals company
Two deliveries, two windows, one loading bay. The florist call confirms the delivery time, who's receiving, whether they're installing the arch or only dropping it off, and when they'll pick up the vases on Sunday. The rentals call confirms counts (120 chairs, 14 round tables, linens in ivory and not white), the delivery window and the pickup time.
Put "read the counts back" in the instruction. A good caller repeats the numbers and waits for a yes. Finding out about ivory versus white is a lot cheaper on Tuesday than on Saturday morning.
When they ring back
Half your vendors won't pick up. They're on a job too. So the assistant leaves a message with a callback number, and the number it leaves is the line's own, not your mobile.
That's the useful part. When the florist returns the call at four, she reaches the same line that rang her, and she doesn't have to work out who called or why. She gives the delivery time, it gets written down, and you get a summary. You were at a tasting with your phone face down, and nothing was lost.
Each summary says plainly what happened: confirmed, voicemail left, not reached, asked to call back later. So at any point in the week you know which of your eight vendors are nailed down and which need another go.
How to hand over a call
A vague instruction gets a vague call. You can give the instruction from your dashboard, by ringing the line, or by texting it from your own mobile. If you already work with an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT, you can connect it and ask it to place the calls. There's more in how to write a call brief. Each brief needs five things.
- Who to call. The number, and a contact name if you have one.
- Which event. The date, and the name the booking is under.
- What to confirm. A list of facts: times, counts, colors, access.
- What's acceptable. "Delivery between 9 and 11 is fine. After 11 is not."
- What to do otherwise. Usually: agree to nothing, and say I'll call.
Money and changes stay with you
The assistant never gives a card number and never agrees to a charge. If the rentals company says a late pickup carries an extra fee, the answer is "I'll pass that on", and it reaches you as a decision. The same goes for contract changes, substitutions, and anything a vendor describes as a small change to the quote.
One limit to know about. Texts from the line to other people are limited for now, so a vendor who'd prefer a text gets a call or an email. The line has its own email address for that, and how it works covers the rest.
On the day, the phone is yours
None of this is for the event itself. On the day, when the cake is late and the driver is lost, vendors need your voice and your decisions. They should have your mobile for those twelve hours.
The week before is different. That's the week of facts. Let something else collect them, and spend your own calls on the one vendor whose answer came back wrong.
Common questions
Will vendors talk to an AI assistant?
In our experience, yes. A coordinator confirming a delivery window wants a clear question and a callback number. The line says who it's calling for and says it's an AI whenever anyone asks. We've written more about this in our article on how businesses react to AI callers.
Can it pay a vendor's deposit?
No. It never gives out a card number and never agrees to a charge. It can ask what the deposit is and when it's due, and that comes back to you in the summary.
Can the same line answer inquiries from new clients?
Yes. The line answers as your business, takes the event date, the type of event, the guest count and the budget range if offered, and sends you the details in writing.
What if a vendor gives an answer I didn't expect?
Your instruction should say what's acceptable and what isn't. Outside that, the line agrees to nothing, tells the vendor you'll be in touch, and flags it in the summary for you to decide.
Read next: How businesses react when an AI calls · Write a call brief your AI can use · Can an AI make phone calls?
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