A conference is a sizable gathering where many people come together to discuss and exchange ideas. Although any organization can be referenced by the phrase, association gatherings and business conferences are generally associated with it. Events including keynote addresses, panel discussions, breakout sessions, and social gatherings are commonly scheduled at conferences. Because they draw attendees from all around the world, these international conferences can be a fantastic opportunity to expand your professional network and meet new people.
A conference's principal goal is to bring individuals together who have similar interests to encourage knowledge sharing. This can be aided through speaking, chit-chatting, and networking. Small and large conferences are frequently planned around a particular subject. A dozen people might attend a small gathering, whereas thousands may attend a huge one. Creating a timetable that will excite participants' interests and leave enough time for networking are the main goals of conference planners. At conferences, academics, researchers, specialists, and professionals gather to share the findings of their work. An academic conference typically takes event planners 12 to 14 months to prepare. It's very normal for the sheer amount of administrative work that lies ahead to feel a little intimidating at first. However, if you have a proactive staff, the appropriate tools, and a well-thought-out plan of attack, you should have faith in your ability to pull off a successful event without having to work extremely long hours. Planning a conference may be very stressful, so having a thorough checklist to follow might help.
Everything seems much more manageable once you divide the myriad jobs you need to complete into particular time constraints, and this is frequently the case. Working methodically through a checklist will also provide you with a resource to turn to after the meeting. You can use it to identify what went well and where there is potential for development for subsequent events. Planning an event requires careful consideration of the conference input. So, here is a checklist for gathering insightful, meaningful, and honest comments.
Even when everything goes well, arranging conferences is chaotic. With so many duties and conflicting objectives, it's simple for an unappealing duty like gathering conference feedback to go to the bottom of your list and come back to the surface once the event is over. It may be tempting to concentrate on the notable speakers and significant social events at first. They are the most fun to organize and will increase interest in attending your conference. Maintaining orderly logistics and completing all last-minute tasks might easily consume all of your attention in the days preceding and during your event. However, if you neglect the crucial process of creating your feedback strategy, it's simple to make errors that diminish the value of your data and leave you with few practical insights for your plans for the upcoming year. Instead, gather the kind of conference feedback you can use by using this list.
Before The Conclusion Of The Conference, Gather Event Feedback.
Collecting comments just after the conference has ended is the most common error in conference preparation. While a post-event survey is a crucial tool for gathering feedback, some of the most insightful information you can gather comes from participants' perceptions of the event as they are participating in it and even from their expectations of the event before their attendance. To better understand the conference attendees' experiences, it's crucial to get input throughout three crucial phases: pre-event, mid-event, and post-event.
By conducting a pre-event poll, you may determine which events registered delegates are most looking forward to. By concentrating your efforts on these, you can ensure that you live up to their expectations. As the experience is still fresh in people's minds, gathering input during the conference will yield more pertinent results. Even better, incorporate "feedback time" into the event schedule to boost participation in and answer your survey questions.
Provide Incentives For Participants To Comment On Your Event.
It can be simple for conference planners to forget that relatively few individuals find giving thorough feedback on their experiences to be intrinsically "gratifying" due to the importance they place on enhancing their event. Without your request, most of the comments you'll likely receive will likely come from irate or disgruntled delegates who want to voice their displeasure. Offering an incentive can encourage conference attendees to submit feedback, just as allotting time in the program can boost response rates overall.
Gathering conference feedback as part of a prize draw is one approach to achieving this. Ask individuals to list their favourite morning or afternoon activity after each meal so that their names can be entered into a drawing. If you're gathering comments following the conference, think about rewarding participants with discounts to the following year's gathering as a way to get feedback from more than simply disgruntled attendees.
Employ Conference Management Software
It could be difficult to justify devoting a lot of time to an event feedback strategy when you already have a lot on your plate. However, if you're utilizing suitable conference management software, the time it takes to finish your feedback task checklist can be significantly reduced. For instance, you can email particular contact lists with feedback requests at any stage using the software's communication centre.
Numerous mobile app capabilities might be used to manage your mid-conference feedback procedure. If your conference offers an app, you can use it for something similar to the prize draw mentioned above and promote app downloads to participants. With apps, you can even gamify the experience by awarding participants points for providing feedback as part of a wider contest. Finally, sending push notifications directly to people's phones may make it more likely that they will reply to your requests for input.
Regardless of the technology you employ, it's crucial to think about when to use each. For instance, even though a mobile app is a useful tool for your conference, relatively few attendees will use it once the meeting is ended. Therefore, email is the best option if you're delivering a feedback survey a week later.
Steer Clear Of Using An All-purpose Event Feedback Form.
Events come in all sizes and shapes. Educational conferences and association get-togethers also have a different format than commercial or business events. If you waited until the last minute to plan your feedback-gathering method, it can be tempting to simply download a basic conference feedback template and call it a day. Although it would save you time, a targeted plan would produce considerably more actionable findings.
Instead, have a look at our survey guide, which offers a list of pertinent inquiries to pose to participants at each stage of the feedback-gathering process. Choose a few of these, modify them, or create new inquiries that are pertinent to your occasion. It can even be beneficial for you to create multiple survey layouts to accommodate the various conference attendees (i.e., delegates vs. presenters vs. volunteers). Think about the demographics of the respondents to each survey and how you intend to use their input.
Make Your Conference Feedback Survey As Brief As Possible.
It's vital to refrain from going overboard and include every question you can think of when building your survey. Incomplete or erroneous responses are frequently the outcome of surveys that are excessively long and tire out the respondents. Please be courteous of the attendees' time and the mental effort required to complete these questionnaires; they are doing you a favour.
Think about the questions that are most important to you and those that will provide information useful for preparing for the conference the following year. Assessing the success of a certain social event or reactions to a change in venue may be one of your feedback goals. You might have invited a contentious speaker and wanted to hear what the attendees thought. Make sure the answers to your inquiries are practical. There is little value in gathering input if it won't guide future actions (or inactions).
Ask Your Organizing Committee For Input.
The members of the planning committee are frequently an underutilized source for conference feedback. Consider gathering anonymous feedback from your committee after the conference is over and bringing it to a debriefing session. Members will be able to express any frustrations they had with the procedure, talk about the most important lessons they learned, and recommend changes for subsequent years. This survey's design and the conversation that follows it should resemble each other.
Inquire of the meeting:
- What went well? What aspects could be strengthened?
- What occupied people's time and resources the most? What techniques may you modify to increase the event ROI for the following year?
- Did the occasion further the organization's or society's objectives and goals?
In the debriefing:
- Examine the attendance data and try to identify any trends. Do we have anything unexpected here? If so, think about why.
- Sort your important indicators and objectives for the upcoming year.
- Agree on the following essential initiatives for the upcoming year: target audience (the same or different), organizational team needs, and how you intend to get feedback.
Applaud The Favourable Conference Response.
It's simple to focus on the bad during debriefing sessions and while reading criticism in general. While it's critical to think about what has to be altered for subsequent conferences, don't forget to acknowledge your conference planning achievements. If you get positive criticism, share it with your colleagues to inspire them. Create a space where you may acknowledge your successes and appreciative feedback (perhaps in a team chat or for five minutes after planning sessions).
Sometimes, conference feedback is quite critical. To counteract this negative impact, change your perspective from "What do people think we sucked at this year?" to "What does this signify for our long-term strategy?"
Make Advantage Of The Feedback From Your Event.
There must be a tremendous amount of conference feedback data that has been gathered and stored somewhere to gather dust. You have lost time and effort if you get data but do nothing with it. Think about how you can use event data to enhance your conference. To determine the information that is most crucial for you to comprehend, examine the data you already have and write an event account. Why is churn so high, etc? What can you do to get more people to come? Why didn't anyone show up to several social events?) Then, in the following years, implement genuine strategic improvements using these actionable findings.
Consider novel ways you may use the comments offered to advertise your conference or enhance the website for your organization in addition to making strategic adjustments. See how the Advantage Conference used participant feedback to create social proof and an incentive to attend.
Don't Forget To Express Gratitude
Saying "thank you" is one of the simplest and most sincere methods to demonstrate your appreciation for the participants' efforts. As straightforward as this action may appear, it's frequently disregarded.
There are numerous ways you might show thankfulness, depending on your resources and objectives. After users complete your online survey, you should, at the very least, send them a quick "thank you" note. Or, if you're utilizing your event app's push notification option to ask questions, have the message appear later. If you want to go one step further, you may send customized thank-you emails to event attendees who left glowing evaluations and apology/solution emails to guests who pointed out problems they encountered.
Sending out a "Thank you to everyone who has answered so far..." email with examples of how you'll be using comments to improve certain elements of future events is another helpful tactic to elicit more conference feedback. People are far more likely to complete your survey and put some thought into their comments if they feel like their input is being heard and taken into consideration.
Conclusion
Not just while you're attempting to improve the meeting itself, but after every significant meeting as well. You can have a better picture of how well the meeting went and what could be improved by gathering post-meeting comments. Within 24 hours of the meeting's conclusion, request comments from attendees. This will make it more likely that they will remember everything that happened clearly.
Ask specific questions regarding the meeting, such as if decisions were made, how well it was run, and how effectively participants participated. After gathering input, it's crucial to get in touch with the people who provided it. This will demonstrate to them that you value their opinions and that you are listening to what they have to say. Within a week of getting their input, follow up with the responders. Let them know what steps were done in response to their suggestions and thank them for their time.
References
- Conference Feedback: Why Is It Important & How To Collect It? (eventible.com)