Crystal Mandel has always been a Tomboy! Her and her friends have always loved sports and when it was Crystals turn to be Maid of Honor for her best friend, it gave her an idea. Crystal put together the ultimate sports lover’s dream Bachelorette party. They started out at a Tigers game, then did 18 holes of golf, and ended the night at a sports bar. Crystal and her friends had such a great time that she decided to turn it into a business. 3 years later, Crystal has carved out a great niche for herself not only in Detroit, but across the country. I talked to Crystal about her business.
VL: Tell me how you got this new business off of the ground?
CM: I had such a great time throwing the Bachelorette party that I wanted to make it easy for other girls to have the same experience. It took me weeks to plan the party, and I wanted to simplify it.
VL: So you started out in Detroit concentrating on local Bachelorette parties, but now you are national. How do you expand so quickly?
CM: Well once I got all of the local teams, and bars working with me, I thought why not try Philadelphia, and then New York, he I am now in over 40 cities, and still expanding.
VL: Walk me through a standard Sports Bachelorette Party.
CM: We usually do an activity, game, and then sports bar. For instance, I did a party in Boston where we had a game of indoor basketball set up, then the ladies took a limo to the Bruins game, and ended the night at a club. It was a lot of fun for the ladies. We have deals at a lot of clubs and bars so we were able to get them a great package.
VL: Based in Detroit , how do you make sure things are running smoothly in other cities?
CM: I do a follow up call with the girls to make sure that every single aspect of the Bachelorette party was perfect. If even a small thing was off, I take exception to it and fix the problem. We have dropped clubs, bars, limo services, from our service because of the way they treated our clients. The customer is the most important. Hopefully this will be her only Bachelorette party, so I want it to be perfect. I am not going to let a douchebag door guy or mean limo driver ruin the experience. I have lost money on some parties because I wanted to fix a problem. We are at a point now where we are only working with amazing people. Our satisfaction rate is 99%. We take this seriously. This year, I added a 24 hour call center to the business. We are on call all night to make sure that the ladies are getting everything they paid for. It’s so easy for us to make one call as opposed to ruining an hour of their Bachelorette Party.
VL: Congrats! Looks like you have it all figured out.