Wabel supplier summits
Boosting event value with digital experiences
How can your event deliver more value?
This question is a focus for most event organisers, who strive to increase the value offered to attendees, exhibitors and other key stakeholders.
Wabel, the company behind France’s popular supplier-matching summits, is no different. They came to us seeking a new way to capture feedback from their audiences, but we soon realised that we could also help them deliver new value to their exhibitors.
Wabel’s major events in Paris attract hundreds of suppliers and buyers who need to bolster and diversify their supply chain. The events are vibrant and productive, bringing together buyers and sellers in a focused environment. Appointments are scheduled. Deals are done.
For Wabel, the success of every event depends on the outcomes for attendees and exhibitors. Attendees need to find suppliers of key services and products. And exhibitors need to attract the right buyers so that their investment in the summit is worthwhile.
At the start of 2019, Wabel had two goals for their next series of events:
1 Capture rich, timely and accurate feedback from their summits
2 Connect more exhibitors and buyers
Solution
Our proposal to Wabel consisted of two distinct components: a real-time feedback system and an interactive screen for browsing exhibitors and connecting with companies via QR codes.
Instant feedback – Smiles surveys
As a leading producer of events, Wabel routinely gathers feedback from all of its audiences. Customer insights are an essential part of their business, enabling them to maintain an evolving picture of their customers, respond to new requirements and pick up on issues before they develop into problems.
However, customer feedback is usually gathered after an event, when opinions may have softened, memories faded and impressions changed – or been coloured by the attitudes of others. This disconnect between the event and the feedback means the information retrieved is less valuable – and may be less accurate.
Wabel wanted customer insights that they could feel confident in and information they could trust. They were keen to hear the true voice of their customer, unaffected by the passing of time or the trading of place.
Our Smiles survey solution offers exactly what they wanted. Using attractive touchscreens, Smiles asks a simple question: how are you feeling? People respond by tapping the smiley face that matches their mood. Follow-up questions go deeper into the specifics of their experience. People can choose to answer as many questions as they like.
By starting with a deceptively simple smiley-face, people are drawn into a customer feedback survey that never feels like a chore.
Chart: Smiles survey results
Digital match-making with Cloudshelf
While many of Wabel’s attendees’ book meetings with vendors before the summits, delegates are also encouraged to browse the exhibitors and get inspired by new products and services. But with hundreds of vendors to choose from, finding the best companies can be a challenge – especially for visitors with limited time for browsing.
We proposed to implement Cloudshelf for events, a digital platform that creates a catalogue of exhibitors or sponsors. Attendees can then use the large, fixed touchscreens to browse the exhibitors, find their location and access contact details.
For Wabel, this represents additional value that they can offer to exhibitors. Exhibitors can choose from a range of paid media placements – from simple listings to large featured tiles.
Results
With a very short lead time, we delivered six interactive touchscreens, loaded with our Smiles and Cloudshelf for Events applications, customised to suit the needs of Wabel and their audiences.
Screens were strategically placed to attract delegates at opportune moments. For the Smiles survey, this meant placing the screen in each of the key zones: registration points, exhibition area, meeting & refreshment zones to get in the moment feedback on each area. As for Cloudshelf, the most strategic place was at the entrance of the exhibition zone.
The Smiles survey was popular with attendees and gathered hundreds of responses during the event. Using this kind of immediate, live feedback meant that Wabel can identify patterns in responses, and can then investigate why delegate sentiment changes during the day.
By gathering feedback in the moment, rather than hours or days after the event, Wabel can be confident that the responses are accurate and authentic. Wabel has compelling new evidence to guide their future events – and create even more value for their stakeholders.
Real-time reporting also meant that Wabel could respond to any significant changes in patterns of feedback.
The Cloudshelf for Events screen attracted thousands of interactions, with many users browsing and filtering exhibitors by category. The Cloudshelf content updated live during the event to highlight the winners of the event awards evening. Our solution gave Wabel clear data about the interactions, including user behaviours, time spent and the most popular exhibitors. In addition to helping Wabel’s exhibitors to match with buyers, the app has given Wabel a new window into the interests and behaviours of their audience, and an additional income stream.
Cloudshelf by the numbers:
- 1,171 tiles scrolled
- 260 items selected
- 6s average interaction time
Feedback from Wabel
Pierre Asseo, CEO of Wabel commented: “We were looking at a solution to provide a compelling and unique event experience that cannot be found anywhere else, and generates additional revenue. Ksubaka Cloudshelf for Events is a powerful, affordable solution that generates more sales.
The team at Ksubaka produced and delivered the entire solution in only a few days. Execution at our Paris event was seamless, and the digital interactive screens provided a great customer experience for all visitors to our event. Overall we had a tremendous success bringing Ksubaka’s Cloudshelf technology into the event.”