How enjoyable is the registration process for your corporate meeting attendees?

The journey of a meaningful event starts with a memorable beginning.

When you're bringing in your entire sales team for a training or 300 of your top producers for an incentive (including those hard to impress VIPs), you have to nail their event registration process.

Why?

Event registration is when the attendee experience begins.  And we know how important first impressions are, right?  Everything that happens from the moment registration opens is a reflection of the corporate event as a whole. Will it be enjoyable, easy and successful? Or painful, complicated and confusing?

Either way, you've set a tone. And when you have hundreds of attendees feeling the same vibe at the same time, you can imagine the types of conversations that follow. When done right, this is a powerful opportunity to give your brand positive recognition. (We have some really great examples of this- let us know if you'd like to see them). When done lackluster, well, you know where we're going with this...

At Cadence Meetings + Incentive Travel, we've found that the secret to achieving an enjoyable, successful group registration experience is to balance smart technology with personal, human communication. 

Here are just a few ways we strive to create a first impression that excites attendees:

We use the best technology

Savvy tools make a huge difference. Through Cvent, an industry leading registration tool, we have incredible capacity to capture and report on data for error-free bookings and seamless transfers of crucial information. In addition, we have the ability to capture additional information to personalize each attendee's event experience!

We make our questions fun

Let's consider the most typical registration question. "Please select from the following options: chicken, fish, beef or vegetarian." Does this sound boring? Are we already boring them? Are they going to look forward to this dinner?

How about, "This is where the celebration begins- our Friday Night Welcome Dinner! Let us know what sounds delicious to you: chicken, fish, beef or vegetarian." While it's a simple makeover to a simple question, the fact that your organization is actively trying to make things more enjoyable will shine through.

We focus on customer service

Customer service is a huge opportunity for a memorable booking process. When it's necessary to talk to a live registrations agent (and let's face it- no attendee really wants to go that extra step), we are well prepared to make the conversation genuine and enjoyable. For example, we actually train our teams to say, "Congratulations on your achievement!" when they answer the phone specifically for corporate incentive trips. To build this thriving service culture, we enforce measurable, incentivized Customer Service Standards with important pillars like Friendly Greetings, Consultative Approaches and Openness to Feedback.

We want to know every attendee

Thinking creatively about how registration questions can help customize the attendee's event experience. For programs with extra long air travel, we've asked questions like, "What is your favorite snack?" or "What magazines do they enjoy?" in order to put together a personalized travel survival kit that included- you guessed it- their very favorite snacks and magazines. What information can you capture to create meaningful moments pre-trip, during travel or onsite?

We surprise + delight

We challenge our team to really get to know the attendee through phone and email interactions. Whether it is an anniversary, new baby or any other personal information the attendee shares, we use this insight as an opportunity to send attendees personalized surprises via mail or email. From experience, we can promise you that these personal touches ultimately make your company look amazing and create some serious bragging rights for your attendees. (Where better to brag than social media, right? Hello brand advocacy!)

If your booking experiences are lacking the balance between smart registration technology and a friendly, personal touch, let us know. We'd love to help you wow your attendees- before the event even begins.