Everyone has blind spots! Back in the days before back-up cameras in cars, we constantly looked over our shoulders keeping track of what we couldn’t otherwise see. The same is abundantly true of meeting planners ~ especially when it comes to the challenges with event registration. While we don’t know what we can’t see, here are some ideas to navigate blind spots you might have with event registration.
Blind Spot: Spreadsheets kill events and cost you money!
The #1 challenge we see every day are meeting planners struggling to get out of spreadsheets. And while the spreadsheet is supposedly, “free,” the biggest risk happens when you miss the most current version, or the document gets lost. Worse yet, your registration data sent via emails could get sent to the wrong people potentially exposing sensitive attendee data.
What’s the impact of bad registration? Bottom line, not having a clean data set actually puts your event at greater risk. You may miss registrations in our planning assumption counts and, worse yet, potential customers may walk away too frustrated with the process casting a negative shadow on your brand.
And it could get worse before it gets better. Let’s explore the economics of a single, unhappy attendee. Consider these data points published by the White House Office of Consumer Affairs.
- A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience.
- Around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people.
- Satisfied customers tell 4-6 people about their experience.
The bottom line, it costs you more with an unhappy customer than it does with a happy customer. Talk about blind spots!
Let’s make it real. For the event that costs $1,000 per attendee, follow these assumptions:
- 1 customer @ $1,000 for the event tells 6 people about a good experience and SELLs 6 more tickets. That’s $6,000 gained.
- 1 dissatisfied customer @ $1,000 for the event tells 15 people about their bad experience. That could cost you $16,000 in a lost opportunity.
Blind Spot Tip
Get outside of the spreadsheet if you can. At the very least, get it off your hard drive and out of email. Set the parameters and expectations with your team of a better way to work. You’ll be glad you did. It will save you money in the near term and make you money in the longer term. Most importantly, this will help you focus on planning and executing great events…which is what you do best!
