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Service excellence through Collaboration - How venues and planners can support each other
- 1. Service Excellence Through Collaboration How venues and planners can support each other Holger Friesz Director Enterprise Sales, EMEA
- 2. TWEET WITH US! #CONFEX17 #MYCONFEX #USIEMEA @UNGERBOECKEMEA
- 3. A „TRADITIONAL“ EVENT PLANNER‘S CHECKLIST Available space Equipment Food & Beverage Contract & Pricing Destination & Infrastructure
- 4. PUT YOURSELF IN THE PLANNER‘S SHOES
- 5. 5 KEY REQUIREMENTS OF EVENT PLANNERS 1. Innovative meeting and event formats 2. Catering and well-being offerings 3. Marketing support 4. RFP answer times 5. ROI for events (& venues)
- 6. COLLABORATION IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS
- 8. A NEW GENERATION OF EVENTS Millennials Participatory culture Unconference Hybrid events Flipped experience Barcamp Interaction
- 9. THE ATTENDEE OF THE FUTURE Has short attention span Has access to all the content Has an online brand Has lot of options Has a personality and influence in the online world Want to be where others are Is using his/her mobile all the time
- 10. EXPECTATIONS Know me! Engage with me where I am! Give it to me in the bite size I want! Give it to me at my level! Let me drive it! Talk about what matters to me today!
- 11. FUTURE MEETING FORMATS Need to allow for interactivity Not tied to a single location Knowledge transfer is key Integrate the audience & enable interaction Small groups Flexibile spaces & equipment Spontaneous, informal meeting opportunities What does that mean?
- 12. VENUES, HERE‘S WHAT TO DO Offer different meeting spaces off the main areas • Corners & Open Space opportunities, i.e. Entrance halls • Chairs and tables outside breakout session rooms Flexible furniture • Easy to rearrange & not firmly installed • Comfortable Conference and meeting technology • Video technology & holograms • WIFI needs to be a standard (How about branded WIFI?)
- 15. WORK-LIFE-BALANCE: A GEN Y THING? “According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, nearly six in 10 millennials say that work-life balance and well-being in a job are ‘very important’ to them” This is also impacting the meetings and events industry With travel, education, networking, social events, there’s a lot of stress involved. How can you create a destination of well-being?
- 16. HEALTHY FOOD & WELL-BEING Pure, natural foods with Eco-friendly & sustainable ingredients Fitness & healthy body Healthy mind: Mindfulness, yoga, meditation Different cultures and religions come together: Food habits need to be respected and taken into account
- 17. VENUES, HERE IS WHAT TO DO Cooperate with in-house caterer and define standards for F&B, i.e. provide drinks & healthy food stations nearby Create comfortable corners and relax zones with reduced noise Integrate elements of mindfulness: Offer space for meditation and yoga sessions with mats, chairs and pillows Offer quiet blogger areas with a creative environment for writers, journalists and professional bloggers
- 19. HOW TO MARKET THE EVENT AND THE DESTINATION Venue website Event calendar Social Media Event content Ad space & sponsorships
- 20. THE VENUE WEBSITE A good website will pay off soon Promote events on the venue‘s website Include an event calendar
- 21. SOCIAL MEDIA & CONTENT Content curation on Social Media Post about the event, date, venue, topic… Retweet/share posts from the organizer Conference content = high quality content Sharing is caring!
- 22. SPONSORSHIP REVENUE OPPORTUNITIES Digital displays Video walls WiFi login page Mobile App Exhibitor Portal
- 24. THE RFP REVOLUTION Fast & easy Cost-efficient Flexible Transparent Comparable
- 25. WHAT DO PLANNERS EXPECT? Transparent, quick, easy proposals that they can easily compare Cost-efficiency Flexibility Consulting and recommendations from venue sales rep Collaboration tool
- 26. CHALLENGES FOR VENUES Strong competition with hotels and instant booking portals Consulting role during sales Keep RFP answer time as short as possible Simplistic proposal vs. highlight of unique advantages
- 27. VENUES, HERE‘S WHAT TO DO Implement Service Level Agreements Analyze the time it takes you to put together a first proposal Offer transparent pricing Present the venue in the best & most beautiful way on your website Offer collaboration portal for the planner on the website
- 28. COLLABORATION BETWEEN VENUE AND PLANNER OBJECTIVE Increase event customer satisfaction and enhance the customer experience by streamlining and simplifying communication SOLUTION Build a user-friendly event customer portal that creates a centralized location for all event specific requirements, documents, and timelines
- 29. [ROI FOR EVENTS]
- 30. EVENT ROI Define criteria and goals for the event together with the planner Quantitative AND Qualitative
- 31. EVENT ROI: QUANTITATIVE EXAMPLES Sold tickets Amount of new attendees vs. amount of returning attendees Attendance and visitor streams Define touchpoints and data sources within the venue ibeacons or other location-based data Bar codes / function check-ins: By scanning attendees' badges you can analyze how well certain areas were received or how popular sessions were Popularity of event on Social Media (both venue and organizer side!) • Social Shares • Usage of event hashtag…
- 32. EVENT ROI: QUALITATIVE EXAMPLES Cooperation with venue staff to conduct surveys Visitor/delegate surveys during the event • As easy as possible: Tablets at the entrance or event staff surveying attendees with a few relevant questions Visitor/delegate surveys after the event • Email blast
- 33. The future is digital & connected.
- 34. Second screens making the experience personal and interactive Sensors and bands everywhere gathering data and personalizing Entire walls and rooms and sounds creating the experience Virtual and augmented reality enhancing the experience Mobile apps and social media extending TECHNOLOGY PLAYING A HUGE ROLE IN CREATING THE EXPERIENCE FOR THE ATTENDEE
- 35. Incorporating technology that elevates the experience for their attendees, i.e. a custom-built app Supplementary use of location-based technology like ibeacons and RFID wearables Attendees can quickly and easily make purchases, find friends, get agenda updates, which sessions are about to start, etc. INTERACTIVE
- 36. Ungerboeck Solutions. Redefining the customer experience • Venue and event management software • CRM, booking & sales management tools • Exhibition Portal & Service Center • Innovative floor plan • Integrated financials • Venue website and collaboration
- 37. INTERNATIONAL COMPANY AMERICAS AUSTRALIA CHINA GERMANY FRANCE HONG KONG UNITED KINGDOM Founded in 1985 250 employees worldwide 50,000+ users UNGERBOECK: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPANY
- 38. SOME OF OUR CLIENTS
- 40. THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- My name is Holger Friesz and I am Director of Sales at Ungerboeck. I‘d call myself a digital native, having the pulse of technology in my blood. I‘m also a huge believer in excellent customer relationship managment and the impact of customer satisfaction on a business. Taking both into account – I‘d like to share with you today 5 trends, that venues and planners need to consider, if they want to stay competitive going forward (which is based on a better collaboration, btw. ;-) You could easily say – „sure, this is a sales guy from a tech company.. Of course he wants to sell technology“.. But the reality is, that since I am working in the events industry, I often felt more like a therapist hearing all the complains from the daily business, people seaking for a change, but also people with stunning good ideas. I will present you 5 strategies for venues and event planners to collaborate which will ultimately lead to a better event ROI and enable venues to stand out of the competition. Are you ready? Let‘s get started!
- As technology makes us more flexible, booking requests and client requirements are changing: Short notice enquiries, spontaneous requests or changes on site... Everything is happening faster. Example CICA – 3 changes at the day, the event was happening (location (rooms, food and timing) This creates new challenges for venues and event planners: Venues need to be quicker and more versatile than ever. Ask yourself: How fast can you react – and also: do you get paid for it? Event planners need to seek the best possible event ROI to be successful. – They want to be booked again to organize an event When was the last time, you did a workshop with the respective venues you work with / respective planners to brainstorm about improving workflows and processes as if you would work in one company?
- This relates to the venues in here… Supporting the Event ROI As a venue, you can directly impact the event ROI by supporting event planners and helping them to meet their goals. Take a moment to look at your strengths and weaknesses, and ask yourself: Where can you provide support to planners? Where can you improve? Which one could be your area of expertise? Put yourself in the planner’s shoes to see where you can provide support and help them to meet their goals. Customer-centricity can become your unique competitive advantage and serve as the foundation to a successful business cooperation with event planners.
- If you work at a venue and these 5 points are new to you, something is wrong :) So what to do with it and what is missing? It’s all in the detail We’ve all heard of “Gen Y”. A new generation of leaders, exhibitors, delegates and visitors is shaping the way events are designed. Meeting formats of the future will be much more interactive and increasingly combine face-to-face with virtual. Engagement of participants and a “flipped” learning experience will be key to deliver an incredible event experience. Let‘s dive into it.
- What is the one thing YOU shouzld take away from this session? With these changes, collaboration of venues and event planners is becoming more important. I want to encourage to think out of the box. Collaboration of venues and event planners is becoming more important as we move away from the traditional "supplier-customer" relationship. Creating synergies and working together is crucial to create the best possible event ROI. The venue may act as a consultant towards the planner/organizer; there is so much input and support the venue can provide during the event sales and planning process. This will make the organizer more successful and at the same time allow the venue to stand out of the crowd. Think about it: The venue team knows their options like no other – they can inspire you what to do with your event to let it become “special” Instead of supplier client relationship a collaboration of both parties will lead to a successful event for the attendee, the organizer and the venue. The venue acting as a consultant. Knowledge exchange
- Change from attendee to participant, generation change, millennials, old fashioned way of knowledge transfer not accepted anymore by audience, planners need to think about different structure and formats, unconference, hybrid events and venues need to be able to provide the infrastructure. But not limited to infrastructure actually. Venues are in the unique position to host lots of events and gain a good level of experience on which formats work for which type of events, what is requested from them, they can start to take over a consultative role during the venue sales process, document other events, pictures etc. Future meeting space, GCB
- Effective personalization means delivering recommendations, offers and content based on what you know about a given customer. It is about creating a natural process of conversation between companies and customers. Personalization = Awesome Attendee Experiences ATTENDEES COMING FOR EXPERIENCE AND NOT FOR CONTENT CONTENT IS UBIQUITOUS. YOU HAVE TO GO FOR EXPERIENCE Share feedback from a MD at a conf: I give a s** on the content – I’m here for networking Upfront sharing of content and offering the sessions to discuss things (example: Sli.do) Any content you need is practically out there you need. Venues have to be way more involved in those experience, and be unique experiences More interaction = more discussions
- As a venue, you can contribute to the success of new meeting formats by providing the necessary infrastructure. Idea from Montréal: Offer free branded WiFi. Internet-dependent attendees will be grateful to connect, either through a branded SSID network name, splash page, or access code, or by using a sponsor’s website as a landing page. For example, there is no shared internet at the Palais des congrès de Montréal, which provides a branding opportunity for a large share of open networks. Can you help us design our conference space? Venue staff members have seen hundreds of events hosted in their space. Ask for their help in designing an atmosphere for learning and networking. “Where you see a roof terrace, others have seen a log cabin with a camp fire. Where you see emergency exits, others have seen alcoves for networking lounges,” said Legault. “Your dedicated event manager is like a Pinterest board: a starting point to unleash your own creativity.”
- Let‘s rest on this picture for a second. Isn‘t this delicious? Psychology of good looking food = food tastes better
- Everybody wants to be healthy, and everybody is on a different diet: Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, lactose-free…. Does your in-house caterer react to these food trends and allergies? https://www.eveosblog.de/2016/10/20/event-catering-und-ernaehrungsformen-gaeste-wuensche-herausforderung/
- Ok, a venue is not a spa. However, events are demanding experiences, they involve travel and create both physical and mental stress. Learning experiences and knowledge transfer work best when everybody involved is happy and focused. And this requires an environment of “well-being”. Especially for young professionals (Generation Y and Z), health is an important topic. Whereas a few years ago, wellness at a conference may have meant adding a 5k run on the agenda one morning, now planners are creating destinations within their events that offer yoga, meditation, nutrition tips, and other self-help opportunities. Millennials are increasingly conscious about what they put in their bodies. Increased usage of soy- and plant-based food for example. They inform themselves about healthy food, they do sports.. And all of that is technology-supported (fitness blogs, food blogs, Instagram, Pinterest recipes, etc.)
- Ok, a meeting is not a spa. However, learning experiences and knowledge transfer work best when everybody involved is happy and focused. And this requires an environment of “well-being”. Especially for young professionals (Generation Y and Z), health is an important topic. http://www.bizbash.com/6-tips-for-creating-wellness-activities-at-events/new-york/story/33101#.WCHJPC3hD4Y Millennials are increasingly conscious about what they put in their bodies. Increased usage of soy- and plant-based food for example. They inform themselves about healthy food, they do sports.. And all of that is technology-supported (fitness blogs, food blogs, Instagram, Pinterest recipes, etc.)
- While F&B certainly is a crucial topic, the possibility to relax and withdraw from the crowd for some minutes is another important aspect. How about offering comfy corners, blogger areas or spaces where event participants can meditate in a calm environment? These may be convincing elements for planners and in the end, it could be your hip and healthy venue that will be the new place to be! Gamification: is there anything fun they can do in the break to network better and de-stress?
- Sold tickets: Direct impact on event ROI Market the event as a whole and include the venue and the destination in the marketing efforts
- The destination and venue are very important in that marketing mix and the venue can support the marketing activities of the planner Especially conference content is good and very shareable as it is really important for the attendees; the organizer will market the event promoting the content, venues can support and at the same time benefit (sharing networks)
- Think of your venue as an event partner that can enhance your sponsorship program. “Planners should meet early on with the venue’s business solutions manager to learn about the full range of services and revenue opportunities offered by the venue and its partners,” said Élaine Legault, director of production services at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. Ask the venue what programs it has in place, and how it might offer options for your unique needs. The Palais, for instance, provides advertising platforms to supplement a conference’s sponsorship program, such as digital displays, video walls, a WiFi login page, a mobile app, and an exhibitor portal.
- Measuring is important – especially when defining and measuring goals
- MCEC wants to be “easier to do business with” Portal to accomplish that mission Collaboration tool we develop Booking, planning, post event Calendar of events Interactive map (pulling from spaces) Opportunity web form/submit RFP Proposal & contract revisions/versions and signature (DocuSign integration) Document sharing (two way) Tasks/notifications/checklists Online space booking Event/order history Special offers/promotions Online order processing Quote delivery and approval (live orders v. doc) Agenda planning (functions) Survey Payment portal
- Online registration makes it easy to capture attendee data and pull reports Scanning badges / check in functions: Great tools to evaluate success of themed areas, e.g. meditation and yoga zone etc.
- What are you most excited about for the future of events? If you ask that question to me… I am most excited about how fast technology evolves and offers opportunities that some years ago we have not thought of. We live in the age of digital transformation. Digitization and innovative technologies are topics that are constantly changing the live and way of thinking of each individual. As the world around is becoming connected and smart (i.e. Google Car, wearables like the Apple Watch, smart buildings etc.) do smart events exist already in our industry? I see more and more associations thinking about the future of events (see GCB Future Meeting Space study) and event technology companies embracing that and developing tools to support the industry. Event tech provider and event industry players will need to work together to make sure that they are staying on top of developing and introducing new technology to their meetings to make sure that the changing needs of organizer, attendee and venue are met. We have to be open to a new way of thinking. For many years we have been saying that face-to-face meetings will never be replaced but technology and digitization is advancing fast, there is a new generation taking over leadership roles and the industry needs to experiment and find out how new meeting formats could look like, combining face-to-face with virtual.
- Takes place in Austin, Texas SXSW Interactive: how does the digital future look like? More than 1000 events, 30,000 participants Live video as new form of communication, SXSW walks the walk on incorporating technology that elevates the experience for their attendees. Through a custombuilt app and the supplementary use of locationbased technology like ibeacons and RFID wearables, attendees can quickly and easily make purchases, find friends, see what bands are playing near them, which sessions are about to start and even practical information like where the closest restroom or firstaid station is located. Wie sieht die digitale Zukunft aus? Welche Trends werden die Gesellschaft nachhaltig verändern? Welche Probleme gilt es zu meistern? Die Fragen sind von rund 30.000 Teilnehmern auf der South-by-Southwest Interactive (SXSW) diskutiert worden. Digitale Vordenker, Künstler, Startup-Gründer, Designer und Vertreter aus Wirtschaft und Medien sind für fünf Tage in die texanische Hauptstadt Austin gereist, um bei dieser Über-Konferenz Antworten zu finden. Die Teilnehmer konnten aus mehr als 1.000 Veranstaltungen wählen — vom intensiven Workshops bis hin zum Vortrag der großen Namen der Szene. Drumherum buhlten zahlreiche Internet-Marken von Yahoo über Google bis hin zu PayPal mit eigenen Party-Angeboten um die Aufmerksamkeit der Besucher. Firmen lernen auf der South-by: Sie müssen sich stärker in die emotionalen Bedürfnisse ihrer Kunden eindenken. Die digitale Welt fördert ein Verhalten, welches von Experten als “Instant Gratification” bezeichnet wird, die direkte Selbstbestätigung. Es geht um den Drang direkt zu prüfen, wie viele Online-Freunde beim eigenen Foto auf “Gefällt mir” geklickt haben. “Wenn wir Süßigkeiten widerstehen, aus Facebook ausgeloggt bleiben oder das vibrierende Handy in der Hosentasche stecken lassen, dann müssen wir gegen einen mächtigen chemischen Gegner ankämpfen”, erklärte Andrew Yee, Ingenieur der Biola University. “Nämlich den Botenstoff Dopamin, auch bekannt als innerer Schweinehund.” Wenn Unternehmen oder Medien dieses Verhalten der Kunden bedienen, haben sie auch eine Chance in der digitalen Welt.
- Customer being delegate, visitor, exhibitor…
- Genuine relationship – far exceeds vendor