It’s safe to say the last couple of weeks have been tough for all those involved in the global events industry. Cancelled and postponed events, travel bans and a general sense of uncertainty means we’re heading into uncharted territory. We also don’t have a crystal ball to know how long this will all last, as much as we wish we did.
For our Integrate Events customers, my message is we’re all in this together and we want to let you know, we’re here to help.
Whilst a large number of events are being postponed or cancelled, there are still many events going ahead, and our Customer Success teams will continue to provide our usual levels of support to you and your teams.
We’re also taking an ultra-flexible approach at the moment, particularly when it comes to our normally well structured onboarding process. Our teams have been given the green light to tailor their work with each customer and help in any and every way we can. We want you to get the most out of the time that you’re getting back as a consequence of the changes to your plans, and examples include:
- Extending and more flexibility in onboarding periods for our newest customers
- Working with you to assess, tune and improve your event lead capture forms, integrations and workflows with best practices in mind
- Providing refresher training sessions for your administrators & app users
- Helping you using our technology away from the bigger trade shows:
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- We’re seeing customers switch to smaller local events such as dinners or roundtable gatherings where appropriate. If you haven’t utilized our check-in functionality yet, now could be a great time to take a look
- Using our “Always-on” lead capture - enabling sales and field teams to use the Integrate mobile app anywhere and everywhere to capture and process face-to-face interactions with prospects or customers
- As part of the Integrate Demand Cloud, we have a number of other solutions for your other lead generation channels that can be utilized to replace the event leads you may lose out on. Speak to your CSM or Account Director if you’d like to find out more.
Useful resources
On March 26th, we were going to be running a webinar around “turning events into a measurable, pipeline generating machine” however we’ve decided to postpone that and instead, I’ll be chatting to a major event organizer and a Senior B2B marketer to share ideas on how to manage through the coming weeks and months. Sign up for the Impact and Actions – Events and Coronavirus Round Table. (And if the original webinar piqued your interest, here’s the registration link for that too!)
The global events industry is famous for its resilience and in difficult times like these, it’s great to see the entire supply chain pull together. Here are some other useful resources to follow:
- UFI (the Global Association for the Exhibition Industry) have put together a frequently updated resources page with all the latest information regarding the industry and coronavirus
- UFI and the SISO (Society for Independent Show Organizers) have also launched SupportingEvents.org to promote the many events that are still going ahead
- UC Today are regularly updating this page with event cancellations in the tech space:
- And lastly, I enjoyed this article on ideas for alternative strategies instead of events by the folks at Sendoso
Keep an eye on your inbox and the Integrate Blog as we continue to share guidance and advice over the coming days and weeks.
Finally - to quote that classic British, stoic mentality, required in times like this - Keep Calm and Carry On (and do keep on washing your hands!).
