Smart Meetings Leverages Certain to Schedule and Manage High Volumes of One-On-One Appointments at Events and Conferences
San Francisco—November 9, 2010—Today Certain Software announced that Smart Meetings, the premier print and online resource for meeting professionals, is successfully using Certain’s award-winning software to streamline its events management processes. The meetings media company hosts a highly regarded schedule of proprietary live events throughout the country, matching event planners and destination suppliers for one-on-one appointments.
Since implementing Certain Events in 2009, Smart Meetings has more than tripled its productivity, reduced costs and dramatically improved communication with event attendees, exhibitors and suppliers.
“Smart Meetings launched three hosted-buyer events in 2009. This year we completed 10 events, and next year that number will grow to 20,” said Marin Bright, CEO and founder of Smart Meetings. “Certain Software dramatically affects our productivity because we are able to automate all of the tasks that we previously performed manually.”
Automation: The Key to Successful Event Management
In 2009, Smart Meetings set out to automate its events management processes and evaluated technology from Certain Software and other competing vendors. The company ultimately chose Certain for its ability to manage registrations, appointments, e-mail communications, coordinate housing and transportation services and streamline the entire events management process with the click of a mouse.
“We evaluated a number of solutions side-by-side and found that none had nearly as many capabilities as Certain for our particular needs,” Bright said. “Certain's automated scheduling option promised to save our events department hours of time, allowing us to handle more events without adding any staff. This is a very important selling point for organizations that want to increase their reach and presence without growing their headcount.”
With Certain Software, Smart Meetings is able to:
- Streamline the event registration process: The first step of the event process—getting people to register and gathering their information—is hugely time consuming when performed manually. Today, everything related to a particular event is captured in Certain.
- Schedule and manage high volumes of one-on-one appointments: Prior to Certain, scheduling meetings was a labor-intensive process that involved setting one-on-one appointments for an average of 50 suppliers and 50 planners. With Certain, Smart Meetings can compare thousands of calendars—in minutes—and schedule appointments quickly with a high degree of accuracy.
- Manage and house critical registrant information and preferences: Before Certain, Smart Meetings had to keep separate spreadsheets that contained critical attendee information, such as flight arrival and departure information, hotel rooming lists for checking in and out and special preferences, such as dietary needs. With Certain, this information is housed in a central, online repository, and once attendees are logged into the system, managing information for future needs is a much more efficient, productive and accurate process.
“Many of today’s forward thinking companies are looking to automation to save time, money and accomplish more with less. Certain Software is proud to be part of this movement,” said Peter Micciche, CEO of Certain Software. “The events management market will greatly benefit from the ability to automate, and as more meeting professionals look for ways to meet the unique demands of large scale events, Certain Software will become known as the ‘go to’ solution.”
About Smart Meetings
Smart Meetings is a division of Bright Business Media, LLC, a multimedia company based in Sausalito, Calif. In addition to producing The Smart Meeting and The Smart Mart—live events connecting meeting planners and hoteliers—the company publishes Smart Meetings, the premier print and online magazine in the meetings industry. It also hosts smartmeetings.com, an award-winning, interactive website.