Editorial
The Gist
- Event importance. In-person events are pivotal in enhancing customer experience, allowing for deeper connections and immediate feedback.
- Strategic value. A focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience can make events a high-ROI channel in your marketing strategy.
- Checklist focus. As you build your event planning checklist, align it with your broader customer experience strategy to ensure consistency and impact.
COVID-19 may have killed customer events for a few years, but they are roaring back. Verified Market Research, a leading global research and consulting firm, expects the global events industry to bring in a whopping $2.194 trillion by 2028 — quite the uptick from the $887 billion the market commanded in 2020.
Let's take a look at enhancing customer experience through in-person and other types of customer events.
As businesses continue to focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences, many are turning back to in-person events. In a recent Bizzabo survey on LinkedIn, 55% of respondents said most of their events would be in person. Is this switch back to in-person events driven by our desire to get more frequent flyer miles? Have we gotten bored in our offices? Or is it because, even with all the digital channels at our fingertips, there’s still value in meeting customers in-person?
The truth is, it’s easy to focus on digital channels and forget the role events can play in enhancing customer experience.
Forty-one percent of event professionals are putting on more events in 2023 than they originally planned. As we start looking toward 2024 strategic planning, let’s take a minute to reconsider why in-person events should be a part of your customer experience strategy.
Enhancing Customer Experience: Why In-Person Customer Events Matter
Seventy percent of people become customers following exposure to some experiential marketing. And that’s because live events provide a unique opportunity to engage with customers in a way that simply isn’t possible through other channels.
But when it comes to your budget, you have to go beyond “networking” when looking at your investment in live events. Don’t forget about:
- Building connections. All of us can probably point to an event where we made a connection that later turned into a relationship. You can’t quantify connections, but you can quantify advocacy. Consider tracking revenue growth via customer referrals, positive social media interactions and engagement resulting from relationships built at your events. Or look into building your own customer community to keep relationships going after the event.
- Gathering customer feedback. We can always send a survey, but what about the opportunity to have customers from different roles, geographies and industries talking together about their needs and pain points? This feedback can be used to improve products and services, enhancing customer experience. And as a bonus, developers love to hear directly from customers — which can help build better relationships there as well.
- Making a splash. Events can generate social media buzz and press coverage — why else does the INBOUND conference invest in marquee keynote speakers like former President Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon every year? But it’s not just about having a cool headshot to showcase on your registration site. Tracking awareness metrics like impressions and follower growth is great but consider social listening as well. If your event drives organic conversations, even better!
Qualtrics found the two key factors people miss the most from in-person events are face-to-face networking and interactivity. Whether your event plan includes virtual, in-person, or hybrid events, make sure you’re building in time for customers to talk to you — and each other.
Related Article: 10 Guaranteed Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction
How to Make Events an Integral Part of Your Customer Experience Strategy
With 52% of CEOs believing that event marketing delivers a higher ROI than any other marketing channel, it’s important to have events in your toolkit. Whether you are looking to build relationships with existing customers, generate leads or increase brand awareness, your event should be designed to support these goals.
Once you have defined your event goals, you should consider the target audience for your event. Who are you trying to reach, and what are their needs and preferences?
Imagine your goal is to engage your audience of young professionals, most of whom live and work downtown. An event at an airport hotel might not be the best fit! Or a group of creative professionals might enjoy a more unique venue like a museum theater, rather than a generic hotel ballroom.
When planning your event, consider its role in the overall customer experience and its impact on the customer journey. Keep your customers' needs in mind: Are they looking to expand their network, learn about your products to advance their careers, or discover industry trends? Understanding your audience allows you to select appropriate speakers and develop branding and messaging that will resonate.
Ultimately, events are only one part of your customer journey, and they should complement the rest of your CX strategy. There’s nothing worse than a mismatch between your event experience and what your customers experience at other touchpoints. So if your customer experience is fun, light-hearted, and friendly across your customer community, your emails, and your newsletter, a customer will expect the same from your events, in look, feel and speakers.
Related Article: 9 Building Blocks Toward Exceptional Customer Experience
Event Management Tips for Enhancing Customer Experience
Maybe you’re convinced that it’s time to bring back in-person events, but you’re worried your skills have gotten a little rusty in the last few years. To host a successful customer event, there are several tips to keep in mind:
- Create a unique experience: Events provide an opportunity to create memorable experiences that leave a lasting impression. Your budget may not stretch to Dreamforce’s — so you probably won’t be booking Metallica this year — but creative technology, like AR and VR, is one way to bring scale to more intimate in-person experiences.
- Focus on the details: When it comes to events, small details can make a big difference in the overall customer experience. One of my favorite conferences last year, ChurnZero BigRYG, stood out because all the staff wore red, yellow, or green Converse, which matched the company’s “traffic light” of customer success. It may have been a small detail, but it showed how committed ChurnZero is to their audience of customer success leaders.
- Engage with attendees: Encourage attendees to participate in the event, providing opportunities for networking, learning and interaction. Nothing is worse than an event where all the staff stand and talk among themselves, rather than with attendees. Challenge your CSMs to meet every one of their customers at the event, and don’t be afraid to break up groups of your staff talking to each other to send them off to network with customers.
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Final Thoughts on Enhancing Customer Experience With Customer Events
It’s easy to feel caught between the ease and scalability of digital events and the familiarity and fun of in-person events. Regardless of if you choose virtual events, in-person events, or a mix of both, the important thing to remember is (surprise) your customers!
After all, it’s not about what we want. It’s about enhancing customer experience. And when you’re making decisions with customers in mind, you’re already ahead of the game.
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