Organising your company’s conferences and corporate events properly can be hugely time consuming, frustrating and difficult, so it’s inevitable that, at times you may want to look at outsourcing your event co-ordination work, but, with an industry lacking much regulation, how do you know you’re getting the right advice about hiring the right corporate entertainment and event management services?

Here are some tips to help you source the right event management agency and services:

Avoid the ‘Order Takers’ with no response:

These are the people that just say ‘YES’ to everything without any thought given to the request itself, any professional feedback given and any suggestions from their professional experience.

Not saying that outsourcers won’t want to get as close to your specification as possible but by just saying ‘YES’ to everything can spell danger and sometimes be unachievable at the event itself, thus leaving you feeling frustrated and let down by your outsourced corporate entertainment services and somewhat embarrassed in front of your colleagues and peers.

A typical example of this is where an ‘order taker’ said yes to fully theming an evening awards event following a full day conference at a hotel where both meeting and evening event were to take place in the same room. The error was that the ‘order taker’ had ignored the fact that it would take 2.5 hours to re-set the room and only scheduled 30 minutes because they thought they might lose the business if they said otherwise to the client.

Well you can guess the result….They did lose the business as they had to discount for late set up and the client never used them again, all for the sake of not giving the right event management advice.

Ask for Recommendations:

You may have some experience of previous events yourself so ask for recommendations about a certain area for hire for your conference. An experienced event management consultant / co-ordinator should be able to offer advice on most aspects of the corporate event. They may not be an expert in Audio Visual or Team Building for example, but they should be able to give you an overview based on past event experiences. Be wary of those that can’t answer anything or just say ‘Yeah, we can check that for you’ to the majority of your requests. Ask yourself or them, why don’t they know now?

Get some ‘Real’ References:

If the outsourced events management agency is good at events they should have a host of repeat customers of whom they can call upon and ask permission for you to get in touch about their service. Take time to speak to these people. Just make sure that you get the company’s they work for as well so you know it’s not just their mates! (It does happen!) This will give you a true account of who you are working with.

Look for Partnerships:

This is a great way to hire your conference or corporate event management services. Partnerships are usually formed as part of ‘mirrored positioning’ so one side of the partnership should match the other.

A great example here is if a prestigious hotel with a great reputation for events recommends an event management supplier they work with.

It’s likely that the supplier has A) been tried and tested, B) has won the trust of the hotel and C) Is positioned at the same level as the venue.
It’s almost like a reference given before you have even asked, giving you a great head start!

Take Good Advice:

It works two ways though, if your chosen outsourced corporate event management company does offer great advice and really want the best for your day, listen to them and use them like a ‘Sat Nav’ trusting their suggested route and be willing to make small changes for the best reflection on the day. They will surely want to impress so as to get repeat business from you in the future. The way they do that is to ensure that you impress your peers and colleagues, whilst making things easy for you.

So….if you use these tips when thinking about outsourcing your conference or event work will vastly reduce the risk of disappointment and embarrassment on the day of the event itself.

For further advice and if you want your corporate entertainment or event to benefit from our 15 years of experience at Chordiem feel free to contact us on 01793 887 632 or send an email request to info@chordiem.com. We offer the very best advice we can.