I’m sitting in the Rochester, NY airport waiting out a three hour flight delay. Readers of Synch-Up tend to be road warriors, so most of you have been in this same position many times over.
Have you ever noticed the similarities to event marketing? There’s a lot to be learned from the transportation industry about how to handle – or not handle – customers at a trade show.
Like stranded travelers, visitors to an exhibit often just want to be informed. Do your graphics and signage make it easy for prospects to understand your booth layout or easily locate specific destinations within the booth? Do your videos, touch screens and media provide quick access to fast facts about your products and services?
Land-bound passengers quickly turn from irritated to angry when they find no airline representatives at the gate podium to answer questions. Do you position adequate support personnel at the booth’s reception desk and key entry points to greet and guide booth visitors? How well informed are those support staff? Have they been trained or briefed on the company’s offerings? Do they know all the staffers by name and by area of expertise?
A gate agent with a sense of humor eases tension and helps put a smile back on the face of frustrated travelers. How about your booth staffers? Do they create a personal connection with trade show visitors? Do they take the time to understand the prospect’s problems to be solved? Before closing a conversation, do they ask if they’ve satisfactorily met the customer’s needs? Do they ask what next step the customer would like to take?
A wave of visitors at the opening bell. A swelling crowd during lunch hour. A flood of attendees during coffee breaks or at the cocktail hour. Unless you’ve prepared for them in advance, unexpected surprises can overwhelm any customer service program.
That three hour flight delay just turned into four hours. I still have no idea when I’m getting home.