In June 2014, Elite Meetings International (EMI), the leading provider of group business technology solutions, launched AttendeeHub, an online and mobile-friendly platform for scheduling appointments, managing agendas and promoting engagement at meetings, events and conferences.
The initial concept for AttendeeHub came from EMI’s FaceTime Appointment Scheduler, which EMI built for scheduling appointments at its own events. After experiencing the software, meeting planners and hoteliers began requesting FaceTime for their own use.
“We were creating a solution for ourselves that just so happened to be a problem everyone else was having,” commented Kelly Foy, CEO, EMI. “We learned a great deal from our very successful FaceTime, and used that as the launching point for this new software. But we built AttendeeHub to be so much more.”
AttendeeHub’s core functionality allows users to schedule appointments with each other via the system’s robust search engine. Using “smart technology,” the software filters profiles to find the most relevant matches among attendees.
“No other app is built from this viewpoint – putting appointments first and everything around it,” said Foy. “We incorporated the expressed wishes of meeting professionals, who needed tools that would help them excel in the profession’s increasingly demanding landscape and deliver ROI and added value to their participants.”
AttendeeHub first launched at EMI’s April 2014 Elite Meetings Alliance (EMA) event to schedule face-to-face meetings. It was later unveiled to the industry at the Americas Meetings & Events Exhibition (AIBTM) in Orlando in June 2014.
Foy observes that the industry is transitioning toward appointment-based events.
“Even those meetings and events that don’t currently offer appointments will almost certainly do so in the future—because the ROI is so much greater when people meet face-to-face,” Foy added. “Efficient management of that element is key. That’s why we believe that every program that has, or will have, an appointment component stands to benefit from this technology.”
The product’s intuitive design and features enable attendees to easily customize profiles with company taglines, fun facts, photos, videos, documents and files to share; view attendee information to identify best prospects; cross-reference mutually available time slots; receive and respond to appointment requests and alerts; interact with other attendees within the app or in the outside social media world; and print or download scheduled appointments to calendars.
Event managers are also able to manage other aspects of a show or event:
- Add, edit, remove and replace attendees
- Allow attendee-to-attendee, buyer-to-supplier and supplier-to-supplier scheduling
- View attendee agendas
- Track and close out breakout and education sessions based on attendee RSVPs
- Promote engagement either within the app itself or on public social forums like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
- Integrate with AttendeeHub’s mobile event app and registration partners
- Upload targeted rotating banner ads
As attendees RSVP for breakout sessions, meeting planners can gauge the popularity of each and make adjustments to room sizes accordingly.
Post-event reporting allows event managers and organizers to track attendee behavior during the show or event. Reports can be exported to Excel with a list of all attendees, along with their contact and profile information. Also included are the numbers of appointments scheduled, declined and cancelled as well as a breakdown of meetings by timeslot.
AttendeeChatter, AttendeeHub’s private social network that connects to such other social media platforms as LinkedIn, also allows for continued communications between attendees before, during and after the event within a private social network that can connect to other social media platforms, such as LinkedIn.
To date, the largest event utilizing AttendeeHub included 502 attendees with 3,602 appointments scheduled among them. A scalable technology, AttendeeHub has the potential to accommodate an event of over 10,000 attendees—or as few as 10.
Future features will include the following:
- Group appointments – allowing multiple attendees to schedule appointments with one another.
- AttendeeMatch – by utilizing attendee profiles, the system will provide attendees with their top matches along with available meeting times. This will also include auto-scheduling of appointments based on availability
- Integration – integration with mobile event apps and registration software (currently integrated with QuickMobile).
- Event Surveys – conduct audience surveys and gather feedback from attendees regarding sessions and appointments held.
- Mobile App – a fully functioning stand-alone event app that will incorporate all of the functionality of AttendeeHub in a native app available for Android and iPhone.
To learn more, visit www.AttendeeHub.com.
