Metzler

Managing a successful event means balancing your event production with the demanding process of delegate management. Here are five top tips to making your delegate management efforts work smoothly and effectively.

What is delegate management anyway?

Delegate management is the term given to the communications and data processes in the run up to an event such as a conference or meeting, and to some extent on site at the event.

Why is delegate management important?

To be successful your event must have an objective, and this objective will normally be related to revenue generated or whether a message that the stakeholder wanted to communicate to delegates was communicated. However, many event managers will lost track of the objective as soon as invitations have been sent.

Why? Well, when you invite people to an event you are undertaking a complex management task that is often underestimated. Rather than concentrating on your objective, you'll most likely find that you're dealing with questions from delegates, changes to their registration data, and communicating these details to the venue and third party suppliers.

To be effective in managing the event you must be able to make sure that the amount of time you dedicate to these tasks doesn't impede on your ability to meet the original objective. To do that you should invest time on implementing a robust and scalable delegate management strategy before you even think about publicising your event.

So how do I set up a delegate management strategy?

Here are the five top tips to successful delegate management;

• Delegate your delegates!
  If your budget withstands it, think about hiring an outside delegate management specialist to handle your pre-event communications and registrations for you. Although it may appear that you can save money by doing everything in house, hiring a specialist will mean you don't have to invest in new technology, and it will give you the flexibility to add more people on to the job if needed.
• Make sure your database software is up to the job
  Spreadsheet software is great for managing data that only one person works on, and where you don't need to keep a record of changes.

  Unfortunately not many events fit that profile. You may well need to have two people working on a delegate list (possibly in different locations), and you can't afford to run the risk of one user saving their changes over another's file.

  If you're running your own delegate management, give a lot of consideration to using a database software package rather than a spreadsheet. Databases are normally designed for multi-user environments, and if they've been built for events they should also automatically keep a log of each delegate's registration history. This is invaluable when queries come up as it quickly highlights if mistakes have been made and need to be put straight.

• Make good use of the web
  The web is a real blessing for event managers, so you really should use it to the max.

  Firstly, it's the ideal place for your event information to be displayed. Your event web site soon becomes the first point of reference for questions from delegates about the event content and location. And unlike traditional media, you can change the content after the invitations are sent, e.g. you can post answers to questions that you're asked that you hadn't originally expected delegates to ask.

  Secondly, it's a great way to allow delegates to register. As well as the obvious advantage of 24/7 availability, using your event web site for registration saves you the job of inputting all the data, and means that the delegates are responsible for the accuracy of their own data.

  These days there are some excellent web based event registration solutions available that are ideal for managing your event data. Being online they will be a huge help if you need to give access to data to third party suppliers (keeping caterers up to speed with dietary requirements, for example).
  

• Log everything!
  It's important to keep a record of every change that occurs with a delegate's registration, including when it was actioned, what changed, and who made the change. This information will be invaluable if there are any question marks over whether a change should have been made or not. For instance, if a delegate disputes whether they should be liable for the cost of a hotel room she didn't use, your logs should be able to highlight when and why the room was booked.
• Stream your correspondence
  Having a helpline that delegates can use to reach you by phone is great for them. It's not so great for you if you've got a large workload.

So look to delegate or outsource your helpline, or if that's not possible then make sure you 'stream' your correspondence down the routes that will work best for you. For instance, in your event correspondence list your web site first and largest, so delegates see that before they see the helpline number. This will usually mean the delegate may find the answer they were looking for on the web site, and they're more likely to make the enquiry by email or web form, which you can deal with at a time that suits you.

Nick Thompson is Head of Events at London based delegate management specialists Dataflow Events. The company provides event registration services such as bulk emailing, conference call centres and email handling, and feedback collection and reporting.