Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Booth Staff Training: More than just hygiene

If we don't take care of our customers, someone else will.
 - Anon.

We recently procured an anonymous survey of our booth at an industry tradeshow and the findings surprised us. We always do the usual booth staff training that includes a tour of the booth floorplan, a reminder to stay off your cell phone and not use the in-booth computers to do email. Look presentable, iron your shirt.

As event managers, we tend to generally be helpful people. When someone asks us a question we don't know the answer to, we naturally respond with a, "I'm not sure, but let me find out." or "I'm not sure, but Chris here can probably help us get the answer."

Apparently, our booth staff does not always respond this way. Through our "secret shopper," we discovered that when asked about a topic in their area of expertise, our staff was amazing. Engaging. Helpful. When asked about a topic outside of their expertise, they simply said, "I don't know." They did not offer to help find the answer. This obviously left our attendees with a bad taste in their mouths.

It was an eye-opening research study which is leading us down the path of actual customer interaction booth training.

How do you train your booth staff?