Case Studies

CASE STUDY - Prospera Events LLC, Producer of InnoTech Conferences 

Prospera Events LLC, a company that produces InnoTech Conferences in Portland, Oregon, Austin and San Antonio, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma has used AttendeeTouch since 2007. Sean Lowery, executive director of Prospera Events, explains why he uses AttendeeTouch: “AttendeeTouch has added exciting, interactive dimensions to our conferences since 2007, that our attendees and staff now both count on for a successful show. By adding mobile communication features from Close Reach Communications, we have been able to simultaneously add on-demand and interactive features our attendees tell us they need while also providing a path to better resource utilization and less waste. AttendeeTouch is helping to increase communication possibilities with our attendees and exhibitors. We are planning on continuing to use them for our upcoming conferences.”  

Challenges:
Prospera Events, like many event planners, faced issues centered around the following challenges:

  • A traditional, printed conference guide which provides a roadmap of all the conference speakers, sessions, sponsors, and exhibitors must be printed well in advance. And, as the event comes closer, last minute changes are  to be expected, requiring staff to tape up signs, print notices, and amend speaker notes in effort to get the word out.
  • The InnoTech Conferences are held in large convention centers, and Prospera’s staff, volunteers, vendors and exhibitors are widely dispersed, which required tremendous amounts of staff time carrying walkie talkies and cell phones and walking the floors, especially the exhibit hall.
  • Today’s economic climate has only increased the competition among conferences for specialized attendees, in this case technology decisionmakers, and the exhibitors who want to sell to them. Leveraging an existing communication channel that was previously unused presented opportunities to set the InnoTech Conferences apart from others.

Solutions:
Prospera Events began using Close Reach Communications’ AttendeeTouch System to provide an interactive Mobile Conference Guide with unparalleled accuracy and coordinate communications much more efficiently. AttendeeTouch paired with CloseReach Communications’ knowledgeable, reliable, personalized service before, during, and after the conference has made the AttendeeTouch System a valuable part of InnoTech Conferences.

Prospera Events used AttendeeTouch at their InnoTech Conferences the following ways:

  • Close Reach Communications created a customized Mobile Conference Guide that can be downloaded to each attendee’s cell phones or accessed online on-demand. This interactive companion helped InnoTech demonstrate its commitment to going green and reducing waste. Content deadlines are by comparison much shorter, which better accommodate last minute changes. Even with changes or updates, revisions were able to be deployed much more quickly and easily, even on short notice. Plus, attendees report they definitely appreciated its ease of use and convenience much better than the paper version.
  • Prospera uses AttendeeTouch’s Mobile Message Platform to create grouped segments of staff, attendee, and exhibitor audiences for targeted messages and notices throughout the event. The web-based interface was easy to use and allowed conference staff to create messaging groups and send relevant, useful messages on the fly.
  • Always an opt-in process, those attendees and exhibitors who choose to communicate via their cell phone always have the option to opt-out at any time and can access the mobile guide on demand.  In addition, because the services is two-way, inbound requests and notifications from attendees and exhibitors help conference staff deliver a high-level of customer service.
  • Prospera Events has found that typically conference attendees really appreciate the mobile conference guide. They have said that its easier to use and much easier to carry. Once they see how easy and helpful it is and that their privacy is secure, they opt-in to other communications delivered through their cell phones.
  • Finally, Close Reach Communications’ provides a high level of service throughout the process. In addition to brainstorming how best to invite attendees and exhibitors to sign on to the service, they are on-call throughout the conference, providing assistance as necessary and monitoring opt-in/out-rates and other technical details.

TESTIMONIALS

"…I especially found the listing of the sessions and times very useful and it was unbelievably convenient to have them right there in my Blackberry, rather than having to dig through a bag full of other papers and product information!  …I'm always willing to stand up and support an outstanding product or service such as your guide …the installation (and removal) process was fantastic, painless and absolutely flawless! Well done!"
- LW , CIO, Firstmark Credit Union

"…Having the mobile guide downloaded to your phone not only promotes efficient ways to use mobile technology, but also reduces the amount of paperwork to carry around.  …"
- BD, Project Manager, IBM

"I enjoyed the convenience of being able to access the complete show guide without having to carry pages and pages of information."
- Tom Evans, President, Lûcrum Marketing

"Installation of the guide was seamless and the organization and presentation of the information was perfect for its intended use. I would definitely use the guide again for other events if it were available."   
- Matt Overholser, Controls Engineer, Dell

"I found the mobile guide extremely useful and very easy to download and run; it saved me from having to fumble with a paper conference guide and was always right at my fingertips when I needed it."
- Wendy Nather, Texas Education Agency

 "The guide proved to be very helpful before the conference to plan which sessions I wanted to attend and during the conference to make some last minute changes when a session didn’t meet my expectation."
- Joe Adamo, Director Communications Services, University of North Texas

"... This product is critical for the person who plans on taking advantage of everything an event has to offer, and extremely helpful to the person who needs to find a single booth and depart after that."
- Dante Mutti, CRM Consultant

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