Every Attendee loves a survey--Not.
Every event marketing professional knows post-event attendee surveys are an important element of the event planning process. But we all also are aware that very few attendees actually fill out the survey forms. Response rates of 1-2% are the norm for paper forms and not much better for emails. That just doesn't cut it for an event survey.
At the end of the event process, many organizers (and the company CEO, CMO and CFO) are left wondering if all the hard work and cost was worth it. The question of whether or not the event was a success is critically important to event organizers and to those other stakeholders, yet measuring success has historically been challenging for many planners. It's particularly important for those events we want attendees to attend again that we have a sense of the attendee's overall satisfaction with the event.
So, what is a good way to get the information you need to determine if the event was a success?
At Message Blocks, after operating thousands of events, large and small, we feel the most viable solution is a simple two question survey tied directly to the mobile agenda in the Message Blocks App: On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend your event/session/exhibit to a friend or colleague? And Why?
This feedback survey is known as the Net Promoter Score and aims to get a snapshot of an event, exhibit or breakout session through the attendees eyes. You’ll likely be surprised by how many more people are willing to answer it than a series of multiple choice questions.
Because the process is so simple, it is also fast. And if you have the right technology in place you will see response rates in the 30-40% range. Using Message Blocks, attendees respond from their mobile device, in session, real-time at the events we support and we have seen response rates in excess of 50%!
It's also easy to report on the data:
Promoters (those who give you a 9-10) are your loyalists and will spread the word about your event for you. Passives (those who give a 7-8) may be happy but not quite enough to recommend you but could be a likely attendee at your next event, and detractors (those scoring between 0-6) are not likely to support other events you plan.
The NPS is the calculated by taking the % of promoters minus the % of detractors. So a net promoter score can range for +100 (where everyone is a promoter) to -100 (where everyone is a detractor.)
Now, many of your are saying "but I need to know about the food, the parking, the venue, the giveaways or something like that." Sure, and I understand that--made my team try to get answers to those questions for years. But in the end, don't we need to be thinking most about the key performance metric for the event and might a simple Net Promoter Score be a better way to get there?
The key an NPS survey is to track your attendee happiness over time. That brings me to the most important part of the NPS feedback loop and the second key question: The open-ended "And Why" part and using it to facilitate interacting with your survey respondents. Making sure to reach out to those who made an effort to connect with you and give you pointers is essential in cultivating relationships and pushing your average event NPS score higher.
CONCLUSION:
How to get started with your NPS survey for your next event:
- Create your NPS survey-- we recommend putting a "SURVEY" button right on the agenda--if your event technology solution supports it. Otherwise, decide about the best timing to send to survey your event attendees. Sooner is better than later.
- Make sure to personalize your survey to achieve best open rate results.
- Personalize your ‘thank you’ messages to help create a dialogue, during and post the event, particularly to those with low NPS scores.
- Create catchy subject lines if you email your survey.
- Set up a benchmark NPS score. The first NPS score you calculate will serve as a benchmark for all your future events
To be clear, an NPS survey isn't a replacement for a comprehensive Event ROI methodology, but just one potential tool to help simply and concisely measure the success of your events.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know. We love feedback (it's our own version of NPS.)