Imagine having a window into the minds of all your guests at an event. With one quick look, you can see everything they’re thinking about your event, from the venue and food to the speakers and topics.
While mind-reading critique technology may not be possible (yet), you can have the next closest thing: access to honest, real-time feedback. You can achieve this with feedback kiosks. They give all your guests the opportunity to share their honest thoughts with you. You can then use this feedback to improve your events, address problems as they arise, and make your customers feel heard.
Why Include Feedback Kiosks
In all the hustle and bustle of planning an event, adding additional feedback kiosks can seem like an unnecessary complication to add to your already heaping plate of duties. However, the truth is that feedback kiosks provide an invaluable resource for improvement, ultimately boosting event attendance and satisfaction.
Address Immediate Issues
When you’re running around trying to ensure everything is running smoothly, you might never know if something—a frozen check-in kiosk, broken air conditioning in one room, or the sound from a speaker’s mic not reaching the back rows—has gone amiss.
While you can (and should) have people stationed throughout your event to address any immediate concerns, this is only one line of defense. Feedback kiosks throughout your event, when paired with onsite event management software that gives you real-time updates, allow you to know of any problems as they arise.
For example, imagine that the last few rows of people in one particular room cannot hear the speaker clearly in every session held in that room. The last thing you’d want is to discover this problem after the event’s conclusion. Instead, allowing guests to let you know right away helps you fix things quickly.
Learn in Real Time
Many other problems can come up that aren’t urgent, but are still worth knowing about and solving. These usually concern guest dissatisfaction in some way.
For example, your attendees may not have been happy with the food provided at a meet-and-greet session—the bread was stale, the food options were too limited, and the servers weren’t friendly. You’d not be able to fix this as it happens, but you’d absolutely want to know about the problem so you don’t hire that same caterer for future events.
Sending out a post-event survey can help you gather attendee feedback, but many may have forgotten about certain experiences by the time they receive the email. In contrast, including feedback kiosks around your event helps guests give feedback while it’s still fresh in their minds.
Give Guests a Voice
Your attendees should feel valued at every part of your event. They want to know that their voice is important and that you hear their feedback.
It’s not just negative feedback you should be concerned about hearing. Even sharing positive feedback can go a long way for guests. Suppose they had a particularly meaningful interaction with one of your employees or absolutely loved hearing from a keynote speaker. In that case, they’ll want to share so you can pass along the compliment.
Placing feedback kiosks around your event gives guests the opportunity to share their feedback whenever they want. Not only will they feel valued, but their opinion of your brand will improve when they know you care about what they have to say.
Tips for Including Feedback Kiosks
So, you’ve decided to incorporate feedback kiosks into your event. What’s the best way to do it?
Consider Including One Immediately After Check-In
Your event check-in kiosks should offer a quick, less-than-a-minute check-in process. This helps avoid any back-ups and long lines, which can immediately sour guests’ opinions of your event.
Because you want to keep everything streamlined, it’s usually not a good idea to include a feedback survey at the end of check-in on the same kiosk. However, once guests have checked in and printed their badge, giving them the chance to share their thoughts on the check-in process is still essential. To do this, consider placing a feedback kiosk immediately after the check-in area so they can share while things are still fresh in their minds.
Incentivize Guests to Participate
Many guests may have feedback, but they don’t want to take the time to share it. And because you don’t know what you don’t know, you may never learn about their problems or positive experiences.
Incentivizing guests to share their feedback is a highly effective way to boost participation. You can offer a raffle, giveaway, or discount to every guest who shares feedback. This will encourage more guests to share, helping you learn more about the attendee experience and continually improve your events.
Keep it Short
While some guests may have no problem powering through a 20-minute feedback survey, most won’t have the time or motivation to complete it. While you want to give guests the opportunity to share all their thoughts, you don’t want to require them to answer so many questions that you risk losing their attention. This will only result in incomplete and unsubmitted responses.
To combat this, ensure your feedback surveys are short and to the point. Give guests the space to share what they want, but don’t require them to tell you what they think of every aspect of your event.
The Power of Feedback Kiosks
Managing an event comes with hundreds of duties and responsibilities. If “listen to guests” isn’t one of the tasks on your to-do list, though, you risk losing attendees at every subsequent event.
Receiving and acting on guest feedback is crucial to your event’s success. You can’t read their minds, so make sure you give them every opportunity to share it with feedback kiosks.