Problem: Cumbersome Bottlenecks
Every year, HCLI hosts one conference style event and around 12-15 leadership development networking events. Prior to using Cvent, the team handled event registration through third-party event agencies and point solutions. But since they ended up hiring a new event agency every year, they had to deal with a different registration system with each vendor. Then there was the process of getting the reg data from the agency to their event platform, which proved quite troublesome and resulted in several instances where details went missing or were entered incorrectly. “We needed to work through our event company to manage event reg, which came with its own delays, then we needed to export the reg data and put it into our event platform. This would result in human error with missing details, etc.”, says Amilyn Quah, Programme Management & Operations, HCLI. HCLI had been using mobile apps at their events for some years, mainly to reduce dependency on printed programmes. However, getting any changes done to the event app through the app provider proved to be cumbersome.
To get rid of the bottlenecks involved in managing these multiple touch points (event agencies, app vendors and point solutions), HCLI decided to get an event management solution that was integrated with a mobile app. After some research online, they found Cvent to be the most cost-effective, flexible and quality-effective of the lot.
Why Cvent: More Control, Less Dependency
The HCLI team now had one centralised system that didn’t need to be changed every year. The self-serve model of Cvent allowed them to make changes to their registration data and their event app without being dependent on third parties, thus giving them more control over their events. The integration between Cvent’s registration solution and the CrowdCompass app allowed information about participant registration, event agenda and speakers to flow seamlessly across them, helping save the time and effort spent on managing multiple platforms.
“For event reg, we enjoy having the flexibility of a detailed registration set-up or a simple set-up depending on the event requirements. Features we most value include registration types and paths,invoice generation, flexibility of email automation...” says Rachel Tan, who manages Public Relations and Communications at HCLI. Another thing that the team absolutely loved was the reporting feature. They could now not only pull any type of report on their events but also ‘park’ them at a centralised location to make it accessible to other key stakeholders. With the CrowdCompass app, they found that they could update and upload info instantly without having to rely on technical assistance. This enabled the team to be more agile with their event management. Though HCLI already was familiar with the advantages mobile event apps offered, the team found some of Cvent’s features especially useful, such as “speaker biography management, schedule importing (as and when changes happen), surveys, notifications, and hosting presentation files to share with users”.
Results: Highly Satisfactory Experience
By leveraging Cvent, HCLI no longer has to deal with overhead costs for agencies or spend on an expensive app, which has led to cost-savings of around S$3000 per event.
The self-service model has also eliminated the time being spent on handling multiple touchpoints as well as delays caused by third party intervention in their processes, leading to huge time savings.
Cvent’s 24-hour customer support allows the team to quickly resolve any issues they face. Says Tan, “24/7 customer support really helps us when we’re in a time crunch – like when we’re rushing to get a registration page or app out. Or if we’ve made a mistake with setup in the backend, that might cause problems (for example, once, due to reg type errors, people were able to register for a conference with no fee), customer support always comes to our rescue”.
“All in all, Cvent brought with it everything that we wanted: value for money, flexibility, seamless integration and prompt support, all in one system” , concludes Tan. As a result, the team’s highly satisfactory experience has prompted them to strongly recommend Cvent to several other organisations that have attended their events and used the app.