Earlier this year when United Business Media announced that they were bring COMDEX back as a virtual event, I was curious – very curious! A gazillion years ago, I performed the first attendee audit of COMDEX. So I know that show well, both from number crunching as well as physically being there. It was an impressive show at its pinnacle.
This post will solely evaluate the “boothmanship” of the exhibitors. The virtual platform can be very effective if and only if it is actually used by the exhibitors who are there. From my two days experience I was not impressed with many of the exhibiting companies and their booth personnel.
Disclaimer: I was a “casual” attendee, meaning I was on the site site for an hour on the 16th and about an hour on the 17th. I did pop into a general session on both days, but my focus was on the exhibitors and what was happening in the virtual booths.
Lesson #1 – Show up!!
This is where I struggle – do I site the no shows? There were two booths in particular where I entered as many as 4 times and never was acknowledge!! How long should you wait to be noticed? Well I gave the booth personnel two plus minutes to respond to a text I placed in the Chat Box. Is that a fair amount of time? I believe so. Then when you go back and see that there has been very little posted (if anything) in the Chat Box and you are there asking a question with NO response – how would you feel?
Now to be fair – this “no show” exhibitor happens on the trade show floor. You have seen it, an empty booth with the name of the company hanging on the back wall. They chose not to come. Or they came and had something in the booth, but the personnel were never there for any type of interaction.
Lesson #2 - Dedicate Booth Personnel
For some of the exhibitors they had personnel staffing the booth in conjunction with other work duties. Here is a snap shot from the VAR Lounge of one exhibitor talking to another person:
So when they are focused on other work related tasks they cannot respond to the visitors who drop in at their booth.
How long should a visitor wait to acknowledge? One minute, two minutes?? I made a point of waiting over two minutes in each of the booth after placing a comment in the Chat Box. I felt that was a fair amount of time.
One of the exhibitors where I was never acknowledge – I know the corporate event guy at headquarters and he would be very unhappy about the situation. Now there may be a great excuse as to why they they were not there. But I plan to ask my corporate event friend about this. So that is why the “guilty” will remain nameless.
There were several booth personnel who indicated that they were having a good show. I have asked if I can follow up with them and three said yes. So next week, I will have a report from their perspective.
A Good Example
One exhibitor seemed to be doing great, in my estimation. He was the only one who used a different color when he corresponded with the attendees. I bet that was available to all exhibitors, but due to poor training or no training they did not use that feature. Here is a snap shot of the chat function:
Spiffs offers incentives to the value added reseller channel. David did a great job of acknowledging and keeping the conversation going on between multiple visitors. I was thinking, he must be part of the younger generation who can text ten people at once. That is not part of my skill set.
Where You There?
I would love to hear your experiences if you were there. Let’s use this as a learning tool to make us all better for future virtual experiences!!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Very interesting take on the new COMDEX. Thank you for reviewing it. I also attended the “live” version in its heyday during the 90s. It will be interesting to see how UBM continues to evolve the show in its new iteration as a virtual trade show and one that is reseller-focused, rather than end-user focused.
Our company sponsored the VAR bar, so we had a slightly different approach than many of the vendors on the expo floor. I do know that our staff experienced exactly what you highlighted: while they were “staffing” the bar, colleagues in our office would continue to send e-mail, transfer phone calls and stop by their desks to ask questions.
I visited the show floor as well, and never had discussions with any booth staffers. Unlike you, I didn’t try to engage in any proactive chats. It’s hard to feel like I was ignored, per se, since I was really just checking out the other vendors. (At the “live” COMDEX, I would have stood in the traffic area between booths and merely observed.)
All in all, I think this was a good start for the virtual version of COMDEX. I hope UBM is able to continue to expand this show. It will mean that sponsoring vendors (who’ve paid a lot to exhibit at the show) will need to put as much effort into staffing booths as they would a live event.
Thanks Joyce, for sharing your experience..