Easing Delegates Into The Event

Attending a major conference in a big city like London was a daunting prospect for Geri Hunter. She was always pretty nervous about these events anyway, although she realized the enormous benefit she received from networking and keeping up to date with the latest trends. The recent terrorist bombings didn't add much to her peace of mind either.

Because you won't know exactly what frame of mind your delegates are in as they await the beginning of the event, it is important ...

Keywords:

online booking, event managment,booking mananger, booking, registration

Article Body:

Attending a major conference in a big city like London was a daunting prospect for Geri Hunter. She was always pretty nervous about these events anyway, although she realized the enormous benefit she received from networking and keeping up to date with the latest trends. The recent terrorist bombings didn't add much to her peace of mind either.

Because you won't know exactly what frame of mind your delegates are in as they await the beginning of the event, it is important that the presenters opening words orientate the audience to the reasons for holding the event. They should refer back to the original objective and should cover the following:

• Who are the people running the event?

• Why has it been organized?

• What should delegates expect to get from it?

• How will the event be run?

• Where in the venue will elements of the event be held?

• When will significant activities and breaks happen?

This welcome speech should be well rehearsed and word perfect, delivered in an up-beat tone to set the energy level for the day otherwise you may lose the audience before you have even begun.

Safety and comfort

As the event organizers you are responsible for ensuring that your audience understands the evacuation procedure in the event of fire, flood or any other emergency and for checking that everyone has been accounted for. Find a way of integrating this information into the beginning of the event and include information about smoking areas, toilets and also identify one of the administration staff as a key contact for any queries.

Some venues set the room temperature at the beginning of the day to a low level in full knowledge that it will rise naturally during the first hour. It pays to recognize this and to empathize with the audience, asking them to let you know if the room temperature becomes uncomfortably cold or hot so that you can do something about it. Say “Because we're not sitting still like you will be, it can be difficult for us to judge whether the room is comfortable.”

Timekeeping and flexibility

As the event moves on, you may find that the original timings were somewhat optimistic and you are not going to complete sections before the advertised break times. If this happens, be honest with the audience. They are probably more aware than you are that things are slipping. Whatever you do, keep religiously to the break times. They are important for boosting audience energy and, critically, the venue is already programmed to get hot beverages and food to you at these times. Changing the breaks on the run can cause far greater fall-out than changing the content of the event. Use the break time to take soundings from the audience about which material might be cut out and compensated for in other ways.

Above all be flexible in your event management and be prepared to do some emergency surgery to presentations later in the day.

Event Delegates Are Lifetime Friends

Customer relationships are meat and drink to Gary Chapman, he runs a consultancy company that trains and informs corporate organizations about Customer Relationship Management (CRM). His company runs public seminars around the country on a weekly basis, dealing with thousands of delegates every year; here is his advice to you if you are planning a similar event.

The registration process may be your first opportunity to connect personally with a customer and demonstrate to ...

Keywords:

online booking, event managment,booking mananger, booking, registration

Article Body:

Customer relationships are meat and drink to Gary Chapman, he runs a consultancy company that trains and informs corporate organizations about Customer Relationship Management (CRM). His company runs public seminars around the country on a weekly basis, dealing with thousands of delegates every year; here is his advice to you if you are planning a similar event.

The registration process may be your first opportunity to connect personally with a customer and demonstrate to them what your values and standards are. Like all relationships, we generally judge what someone is like in the first 60 seconds and this is no different. You should consider each delegate as a potential lifetime friend who you are meeting for the first time and you should give them absolutely no cause to question your professionalism.

If this is the first time you have run an event and your admin staff have not yet cut their teeth either on delegates or on the product (the event), take plenty of time to script everything from the first telephone answer to the most awkward set of requests and questions you can think up. Give your people a chance to role-play those first 60 seconds until it becomes absolutely second nature.
Answer before the first ring

Consider what standards your admin team ought to be meeting. One organization demands that all of its telephones are answered “on or before the first ring” to demonstrate its urgency and alertness. “Hey! That's not physically possible”, I hear you say. Well, some telephone systems ring first at the receiving end before the caller hears the first ring in their ear, meaning that if you pick up after the first ring, the caller won't hear a ring. Although that can be a bit scary, you may want to set your standard around 3 rings and stick to it.

There are all sorts of other standards that are worth discussing with the admin team to ensure that your customers get a good standard of service:

• call-back within a promised timescale

• paperwork posted within 8 working hours

• emails sent within 4 working hours

• database up to date at the end of each working day

• payment reminders sent out 21 days, 28 days and 35 days after registration

Having set standards, make sure there is an easy way of checking that they are being adhered to. It is better that the admin team has their own monitoring system that you can check from time-to-time than to have big brother/sister keeping a permanent watchful eye on standards.

Gary Chapman also encourages his Admin Team to treat one another in the same way, using the same standards that they would use with an external customer. This way you actually remove stress and conflict as there is no potential to make a wrong decision. “What's the point of double standards?” asks Gary “Any reasoning person, given the choice, would choose the easier option. That's how standards slip. We don't give ourselves the choice!”