CHRISTIAN BROTHERS AUTOMOTIVE CORPORATION & MARRIOTT MARQUIS HOUSTON

Seamless event collaboration with Cvent Event Diagramming and Cvent Passkey

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Background & Goals
Approach
Results
Products Used

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6,300+

hours saved using Passkey

2,000+

diagrams created annually

167,000

annual group room nights managed with Passkey

Christian Brothers Automotive (CBA), a nationally franchised automotive repair company, oversees a variety of events ranging from single-day meetings to multi-day trainings and large-scale conferences. These events are critical to relationship building and education for the entire brand family.

CBA originally struggled with disparate systems and lengthy back-and-forth communication that impacted the success of their programs. Their reliance on a third-party vendor for housing management was inefficient, causing delays and mismatched registration and housing lists. “Room block utilization and reporting was essentially non-existent,” explains Katy Baronitis, Events Manager. The lack of integrated systems resulted in frustration, inefficiencies, and a lack of comprehensive data to assess program impact.

BACKGROUND & GOALS

Transforming event management with Cvent

To address these challenges, CBA adopted a comprehensive suite of Cvent solutions including Registration, Cvent Event Diagramming, Cvent Passkey, and more. These integrated tools housed all of their event management processes within a single system, significantly improving efficiencies.

The Registration tool allows CBA to collect and securely store all attendee and event data while creating a more personalized attendee experience. They are also able to track all event program data easily in one location. Katy explains, “By moving all of our training program registration to the Cvent platform, we have cross-department reporting that allows us to truly see the growth and impact of those classes across the brand as a whole.”

Fostering valuable industry partnerships

These solutions are particularly valuable in helping to manage CBA's annual owners meeting and marquee conference, “Mastering the Difference.” For several years, Katy has partnered closely with Marriott Marquis Houston to host the conference. As an ideal event venue connected to the George R. Brown Convention Center, Marriott Marquis Houston offers more than 1,000 guest rooms and 152,000 square feet of meeting space. They receive nearly 2,000 RFPs each year through the Cvent Supplier Network. Director of Event Planning Victoria Musali and her team use Cvent Event Diagramming to provide detailed event space diagrams and immersive visual experiences.

APPROACH

Event Diagramming and photo-realistic 3D tours let event planners experience the meeting space without traveling onsite and gives them the freedom to experiment with room layouts and creative design ideas in a to-scale online environment. This streamlines the planning process and keeps the hotel and planner in constant communication about the design of the event. Victoria invites her customers to use the collaborator link within the diagramming platform to work together in real-time. “A huge piece to Marriott Marquis Houston event planning team is having those one-on-one conversations and really understanding what the meeting planner wants,” she explains. “A big part of that is having Cvent Event Diagramming as a reference point.”

Cvent Event Diagramming collaboration image

Driving collaboration with Cvent Event Diagramming

Collaborator links allow event managers to view and alter 3D event spaces or experiment with room set-ups. The experience proved immensely valuable for Katy, who chose to purchase an Event Diagramming license for CBA after using a collaborator link from Victoria. With their own license, CBA is now able to leverage Event Diagramming to enhance the RFP process on the Cvent Supplier Network. Katy explains, “I'll pull the hotel up on Event Diagramming, drop in my general sessions and breakouts, and then I actually have a diagram I can attach to that RFP from the start.” This allows them to move more quickly from initial RFP to planning execution.

Event Diagramming lets Katy experience a virtual walk-through of venues and event spaces in detailed photorealistic 3D. The automated solution eliminates manual processes by offering accurately scaled digital floor plans. Katy can sync registration data into Event Diagramming for more seamless workflows. In addition, they can diagram custom objects and reference them year-over-year. This makes the planning process easier for Katy as she can reuse the diagrams when returning to the same venues. “ I can't count the hours that that has saved me,” she shares.

Having their own license means Katy no longer relies on the venue to design spaces. “We can innovate more feely with the contracted space and share our ideas for a faster EO approval process,” she says. Victoria agrees, noting the user-friendly tool helps speed up collaboration. “ We’re not having to wait to export things and send it over via email,” she explains. “We can just make changes and let the event planners know, all in real-time.”

Victoria particularly appreciates the ability to include event details like AV, seating, event flow, and labor timing. Marriott Marquis Houston creates more than 2,000 diagrams each year and their floorplans are viewed nearly 5,000 times on the Cvent Supplier Network. In addition to using the diagrams as a sales asset when collaborating with event planners, the internal hotel operations staff rely on diagrams to set rooms correctly, plan for room changes, and accurately estimate staffing needs.

Katy notes that the value of Event Diagramming lies in the efficiencies it creates. As the sole event manager for CBA, Event Diagramming allows Katy to efficiently delegate tasks to support team members. The ease of integration with other essential Cvent solutions is also a key aspect that both Victoria and Katy deeply appreciate. A comprehensive suite of Cvent products touches all areas of event management. While Event Diagramming enables Katy and Victoria to design engaging events, Cvent Passkey improves the room block management process for both parties.

Streamlining housing management with Cvent Passkey

Cvent Passkey allows event managers and hotels to automate housing management requirements through a streamlined, user-friendly solution. With custom booking sites, Cvent Passkey offers guests a simple, branded experience for booking their room. The dashboards provide constant communication between the hotel and the planner about pickup rates, room availability, and special requests.

Katy now has instant insights into pickup reports and attrition, whereas she previously relied on a third party. Attendees can also self-manage bookings and shoulder night requests – a particular advantage when working with a new venue. “Our attendees no longer have to send separate email requests or call in and can instead make their reservations with ease,” Katy notes.

Victoria appreciates the ability to offer upsell amenities to guests using Passkey. Making these offers and amenities available to guests brings in more than $800,000 in incremental revenue each year for the hotel. Passkey can also be integrated to the hotel’s existing tech stack to ensure all reservations are automatically synced with their CRM. With robust integrations, Katy can be sure that suites are saved for VIP attendees, and Victoria can streamline the check-in process and offer additional perks by becoming a Marriott Bonvoy rewards member.

Victoria also points to the security Passkey and other Cvent solutions offer as a distinct benefit. “It really controls who is seeing that information, whether that’s credit cards, names and addresses, or other data,” she says. Katy agrees, noting, “The privacy factor for credit cards and sharing that information – and the ability to know that it's in a trusted database – is huge.” In addition, storing this data in a single location means CBA can now easily manage no-show charges to ensure there is no lost revenue or manual follow-up. “It's so fantastic that we don't have to worry about that data piece,” Katy says.

The automated efficiencies the tool offers are clear value-adds for Victoria. “The dashboard is so easy to use, especially when you need weekly pickups, rooming lists, and so on,” she says. For this reason, the hotel uses Cvent Passkey to efficiently manage 52,000 room reservations annually. Katy agrees, noting Passkey saved CBA over 6,300 hours in managing room blocks alone.

RESULTS

Powering industry success with Cvent

Katy cites Cvent’s intuitive product suite as an important factor in helping her power CBA's robust event program. “The combination of Event Diagramming with Passkey, with Registration, with Attendee Hub – all of those pieces combined create an event tech stack that allow me to do my job with excellence,” she explains.

As for Victoria, the streamlined nature of Cvent technology enables her team to quickly respond to RFPs, questions, or updates and focus on providing the hospitality that Marriott Marquis Houston is known for, such as their impressive 98% response rate. “These are features that allow us to get things done quickly and get it over to clients very fast,” she said.

Katy shares working with venues that have Event Diagramming and Passkey “gives me peace of mind.” She says, “Having up-to-date diagrams and floor plans on Event Diagramming, that's a must for me.” In addition, she says venues that have Passkey “just make everything so much easier.” As such, she’s excited about new opportunities to use Cvent technology in their growing relationship with Marriott Marquis Houston. “Using Cvent allows us to focus on hospitality and customer service onsite instead of managing tricky logistics and non-connected systems, and we’ve seen attendee engagement grow exponentially as a result,” she says.