Is the exhibition industry providing an outdated customer experience?

Google, amazon etc. are fast, practical, personalised and secure. In the trade fair industry, websites are usually very slow (on average five times slower than a standard Google search) and people are happy when events successfully attract many visitors and they have to queue in long lines, while amazon has opened a shop where you can simply take what you need and leave without being stopped by a checkout. 

PRESENTATION ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT THE UFI EUROPEAN CONFERENCE IN VERONA

At the UFI European Conference 2018 in Verona, Italy, Gunnar Heinrich (CEO adventics & Scan2Lead) once again gave a presentation on "Digital Transformation", together with his colleagues from the Digital Innovation Committee Stephan Forseilles (easyfairs) and Matthias Tesi Baur (MBB-Media). The audience, consisting of trade fair organisers, site operators, associations and service providers, was asked to actively participate and vote on specific topics in real time using a survey tool.

VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE ON THE TOPIC

It couldn't be more obvious that the UFI members and attendees in the room agree that the exhibition industry offers an outdated customer experience. But then why isn't anything changing? Why does everyone stick to their old ways and put "business as usual" before customer experience? As the feedback shows, it's a mix of habit, fear and lack of communication.

"We've been doing it this way for 20 years!" (habit) is one of the most common rejections received by participants who want to change something. This is closely followed by the excuse "If we change this or that, my event may no longer be a success", the 'fear' aspect. And the lack of communication becomes clear when you realise, for example, that the event manager thinks that marketing does not want to shorten the questionnaire in the registration, while marketing thinks that top management definitely wants the data, and top management is convinced that the event manager has good reasons for such an arduous registration process.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH THE UFI DIGITAL INNOVATION COMMITTEE

This article is based on Stephan Forseille's post “As event organisers in the 4th industrial age, we are providing an outdated customer experience…” in the UFI Digital Innovation group on LinkedIn. Stay in touch and up to date with digital innovations in the exhibition industry.

Join our LinkedIn group ("UFI Digital Innovation Group" or http://www.ufidigital.com) or follow us on Twitter (@UFIDigital). Join your fellow experts in the event industry, become part of the community and shape the future of events together.

Join us at the next Digital Innovation Group Focus Meeting: Once a year, we invite CIOs, marketing managers, IT specialists and anyone interested in the digital transformation of our event industry to a Focus Meeting. In addition to interesting talks and presentations, the three finalists for the UFI Digital Innovation Award also present their solutions at the Focus Meeting. Take part and vote for the winner.

Munich, 16. July 2018, © adventics GmbH