A post-event survey is a critical tool which planners should not confuse with another piece of junk email.
Event service professionals at hotels, convention centers, and convention and visitors bureaus carefully review and use feedback from meeting planners to improve their destinations, operations, and service.
Survey responses from planners — the people who are bringing attendees to a destination and venue — are instrumental when facilities are considering decisions such as capital improvement projects.
Using feedback
In Pittsburgh, for example, the services team knows the building struggles with access from one side. Based on feedback from multiple clients, the Pittsburgh team can show the building owners data from the surveys to help validate the need for a capital improvement project. Client opinion is taken very seriously because needed improvements, for example, might jeopardize a future booking.
Hearing feedback from planners is also valuable to a destination’s outside partners, as it measures how effectively all aspects of a destination work together to ensure client delight and return business.
Areas for review
Elements such as transportation, restaurants, and retail can be evaluated for performance and value to the planner’s attendee experience, says Julie Brakenbury, CGSP, director of services at the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. Positive and negative responses help event service professionals provide feedback to partners so they know what they are doing is working — or isn’t.
Denise Reid, event planning manager at Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans, loads all feedback into spreadsheets so she can easily recognize areas of improvement or strengths on which to capitalize. Her team discusses survey results at weekly staff meetings to ensure the comments are being heard, and more importantly, addressed.
By reviewing planner feedback, event service professionals can bring about meaningful change.