Topcon
Moving to Cvent’s Event Management and Marketing Platform enabled Topcon to save time organising events while also improving their attendee experience.
Topcon events and past pain points
Events are one of the main channels for reaching marketing objectives at Topcon. Heleen Konermann, Senior Event Manager at Topcon stated ‘in the EMEA region, we run about 50 events a year, along with hundreds of other events globally, ranging from exhibitions to internal events. Heleen highlighted that they invested a lot of time in finding the most suitable event management solution. “When I started at Topcon, we were managing events using Excel, emails and a variety of online registration tools. Not being able to send automatic emails, having no tracking or being able to share information quickly with colleagues made it almost undoable”.
Looking for a market leader: partnership with Cvent
Topcon looked at Cvent as they believed Cvent to be the market leader. “Cvent could provide the overall package. There’s a lot of companies that do online registration or badge printing, but Cvent can cover the entire event lifecycle” says Heleen Konermann.
Topcon started partnering with Cvent in 2015 and since then they have implemented multiple Cvent products. Topcon wanted to improve attendee experience through adopting online registration and the Cvent Mobile Event app. The new systems allow a more seamless registration process and provided attendees with networking capabilities and easy access to session information which can be updated with the latest information.
Another priority was to use the data gathered through the Cvent solutions to “provide insight to the business units through the ROI of events and how effective they are” stated Heleen. Heleen and her team can share event reports with key stakeholders using the Cvent Portal, giving stakeholders key event insights. This previously would have required them to get in touch with Heleen’s team and taken up valuable time for them.
Process improvements with Cvent products
At previous exhibitions, there would be two or three staff present to answer questions, but since adopting the app with a FAQ section and event information, “we no longer need staff present just to answer questions, they can be utilised elsewhere”.
The check-in and badging experience have also changed significantly for event attendees and the Topcon team. With OnArrival, badges do not need to be printed and taken to the venue beforehand, and queues have disappeared. “In the past we printed all our badges, shipped them to the event, had badges which weren’t collected for no-shows, and had to print other badges for last minute attendees onsite. With the on-demand badging Cvent offers, this doesn’t happen anymore and we’re saving time, money and resources not printing badges for attendees who didn’t turn up. It is a seamless process” said Heleen.
In the most recent phase of the Cvent journey, Topcon has started to utilise integrations with their CRM platform, which saves them “countless hours” as all the information gathered in Cvent is automatically reflected in Salesforce, allowing different teams in Topcon to easily access this information instead of having to ask Heleen and her team.
Cvent Registration has been a huge time saver for Topcon. Being a global company, Topcon invites attendees from all over the world, requiring emails to be translated into up to 7 different languages. With Cvent Registration, having the ability to save branded and translated email templates, has saved “for larger events up to 50 hours per event”.
A Unified Event Platform & Topcons Future with Cvent
The evolution of Cvent within Topcon and moving from multiple event management processes to one unified platform has made it “much easier to ensure data accuracy, for attendee management, track event ROI and maintain event brand consistency” highlighted Heleen. Having a unified platform also allows Topcon to quickly make changes that are mirrored in several solutions. “Making a change used to be chaos, with lots of copying and pasting across the website and event app. Now it is a seamless process”.
With the new technology automating and streamlining numerous tasks such as this, Heleen feels her “role has changed significantly since we started using the Cvent platform because instead of focusing on getting the event organised – being a logistical event manager – I can now be a strategic event manager”.
Topcon is looking to integrate more solutions into Cvent, such as SAP, Concur and Pardot, as well as adopting more Cvent products such as Passkey. “I’m very happy that Cvent is able to integrate with so many other platforms, and I would recommend Cvent because it gives you an overall event marketing and management package”.
