Keeping pace with clients’ needs is always a challenge. And if your venue has outdated technology and processes it’s hard to deliver an exceptional client experience.
It’s not just about driving efficiency – it’s also about communication. Because while your clients appreciate a well-run event, you also need to engage with them digitally before and after the event.
21st century venues need 21st century solutions. So, what do you need to change to bring your venue booking system up to date?
Investing in technology transforms your venue. From the customer’s first step, the initial enquiry, all the way through the journey to the event and to the final invoice – there’s a technological solution to save you time and generate more revenue.
6 important areas to power up with technology:
- Engaging with your customer online
- Close the loop between sales and marketing
- Streamline online booking
- Create a satisfying customer experience
- Frictionless contracts and billing
- Capture invaluable data
Engage with your customer online
Event bookers check out your website and social media channels before they make an enquiry. It may even take several visits before they contact you – and it might not be an immediate sale. Without the correct marketing processes, it’s easy to lose track of prospects and sales.
Integrating your venue management solution and CRM such as Dynamics means you can give your audience engaging content and create targeted marketing campaigns that hit the mark with your prospects.
The new breed of CRM also uses marketing automation to massive effect. For instance, it automatically sends out email campaigns when triggers are activated, such as a repeat visit to your site.
You never miss the opportunity to engage with a motivated prospect. Ever. And the CRM alerts your sales team so that they can call the prospects in the knowledge that there is an existing level of interest.
With social media, the CRM can schedule months’ worth of posts and tweets . It also captures data on who is engaging with the content – ideal for refining personalised communications.
Streamline online booking
For small or simple last-minute bookings, it’s important to offer a seamless web booking experience. Integration between your website, venue booking system and online payment gateways means you can take orders, fill the diary and process payments automatically even with the office is shut.
In addition, integrating your venue management software with industry directories such as venuedirectory.com opens up an even larger audience for your live booking inventory.
Once past reception, wayfinding solutions and digital room signage driven by data feeds from the venue booking system make sure delegates find their way to the event on time with the minimum of stress.
Frictionless contracts and billing
Today’s busy event booker and venue want to get things done fast. When you integrate your venue booking solution with electronic signature providers, e-contracts can be processed in minutes and updated in the system automatically.
By capturing event costs with unerring accuracy and full integration to accounts packages, your accounts team can produce an invoice at the touch of button. Time wasted on mechanical tasks can now be invested in chasing late payments and improving the bottom line.
A venue booking system is far more than a tool for the day-to-day running of your venue. With a wealth of data at your disposal, your venue can drive a culture of continuous improvement.
Using intuitive graphical dashboards, the venue management team can get a high-level view of sales performance, stuck opportunities, who their top clients are and which marketing channels are generating the most revenue.
When fast decision-making is a competitive advantage, it’s a compelling proposition to be able to forecast cashflow accurately, generate tactical sales strategies, create target lists for customer retention and rationalise marketing spend from a report.
The venue industry is in a state of rapid change, thanks to innovations such as hybrid events, and the pace is accelerating. What worked 10 years ago will no longer take your business forward.
To grab today’s digitally savvy clientele, your venue needs more than a simple venue booking system – a fully-fledged venue management software suite integrated with your other technology boosts efficiency, drives up revenue and keeps customers coming back for more.
The going has been tough for venues – and now it’s time for the tough to get going. And with the right technology as your partner, that journey just became a whole lot easier.
Our clients such as the Union Club are realising digital transformation in weeks. Watch our video to see how.