Coats
Coats adopts Cvent to achieve cost savings and sustainability while enhancing the delegate experience.
Leader engagement
Coats holds a regular Global Leadership Conference. The internal event is attended by over 100 members of its senior leadership team who have a key role in shaping the business going forward. The content focuses on strategy, themes and core projects. The objective is to engage and align delegates and provide them with messaging to share locally with their teams.
Manual event planning simply won’t do
Kristina Blissett, Head of Group Communications, Coats stated; “This was the first time Coats used a single dedicated app to provide all the event support and information. Before Cvent, we relied on emails, often with attachments, to share information ahead of the event which was then supported by hard copy delegate information packs distributed on site. This created complexity around working with different suppliers for design and print, as well as the need to build in lead times for delivery of materials to the venue.”
Reducing the volume of printed material would lower costs, be more environmentally sustainable and at its simplest level save delegates having to carry packs of printed materials. It would also ensure they always had the most up-to-date information as changes could be made in real time.
An app had been trialed at a previous event on a very limited scale; within the confines of the conference room on a small number of shared devices issued just for the duration of the event. With digitisation being one of the core strategic themes for the company, it was time to source an enhanced technology solution that could bring about a digital step change in the overall attendee experience.
Coats believed a mobile event app would allow attendees to network, communicate, share insights, take part in discussions and give live-feedback on sessions and the overall event. Coats also wanted to create a sense of anticipation through gamification in the weeks running up to the conference.
Choosing Cvent and using the mobile app
Coats looked at several options for event apps. In addition to its event objectives, it was looking for a provider who could deliver a secure platform, ease of use (for both organisers and attendees) and dedicated customer support.
“CrowdCompass ticked the boxes for the features provided: live-polling, feedback surveys, networking tools, as well as being user-friendly. It was intuitive and easy to set up – an out of the box solution but with enough flexibility to make it feel custom made” remarked Kristina.
Once using CrowdCompass, Coats was impressed with the customer support provided. “There is initially some handholding through the build and development, but it is incredibly user-friendly. The structured training sessions enabled us to learn how to use the app and launch it. The 24-hour helpline was invaluable as the event was held in a different time zone to where the Coats delivery team was based.”
Coats particularly noticed the different dynamic the app brought to the event by allowing delegates to interact with each other before attending the conference. This created excitement for the event as well as an element of fun via the activity feed, which became a very popular way to share images of delegates participating at the conference.
Big wins for Coats
The app supported the Coats team before, during and after the event. The 100% adoption of the app proved how popular it was amongst attendees and the interaction on sessions, presentations and feedback on the overall conference provided invaluable real time data.
The event app helped Coats achieve three key objectives: cost savings, sustainability and enhancing the convenience of the delegate experience. Kristina said, “The flow of information was a big win – we could share updates and additional content with attendees wherever they were at the click of an upload to the app.”
Enabling on-the-fly additional notes for schedules and content and automatically collating data in one place also helped the post-event data analysis. “The Cvent app helped make the event seamless, more interactive and impactful.”
