No mystery to MEETinLEEDS’ latest triumph - by Matt Hamnett

Every now and then someone calls the conference sales office, asks a number of questions about our venues and, under a false name, makes an enquiry for a totally fictitious event that will never happen.  And we fall for it every time.

The conference sales team at MEETinLEEDS are constantly looking at ways in which we can improve how we work to help our customers create the event they’re looking for with as much ease as possible.

We've worked hard to put systems in place which allow our customers a seamless experience from making an enquiry to booking a venue and we pride ourselves on the level of knowledge our team has on all of our facilities.  Once the event is over then we ask the organisers, and the delegates too, if everything went as planned.  If for any reason something isn’t quite right then we make sure we know about it so that we can put it right next time.

Sometimes this isn’t quite enough though.  Whilst we’re quietly confident that we deliver a fantastic customer experience (and our feedback confirms this) it’s important that we look at our business through fresh eyes.  It’s for this reason that we allow a total stranger to conjure up these fabricated conferences as part of a mystery shopping program.  And we happen to do quite well in them!

Last year the team took part in several mystery shopping measures looking at their telephone and booking skills.  The mystery shopper assesses things such as: how quickly the call was answered; whether it was answered in a professional manner and whether the relevant person was able to take the call.  The sales team scored 91% and 100% on the last two occasions.

This year we wanted to look at how well we perform show-rounds at our venues, as well as the initial telephone enquiry, and we’re proud to say that we scored a fantastic 97.2%.

Of course all of these results don’t mean that we’ll be resting on our laurels.  We’ll continue to look for more ways that we can make ourselves even more helpful, and we’ll go on testing ourselves to make sure that we’re getting it right!

Read more about our Mystery Shopper by reading our news page.

Angel for a Day - by Natasha Lockwood

Have you ever found a £20 note on the pavement? At first it feels really good and exiting, but then after a while you start to feel guilty that you have received something you don’t deserve.

Richard (aka Charlie) and me, being an Angel

This, I've learnt, is similar to the feeling when you accept praise from friends and family, because they’ve seen a picture of you in a nice dress collecting an award for something that wasn’t really your work!  Here’s the picture, and the story to accompany it, of how I became an angel for a day.

Let me first set the scene. In our Conferencing department we have a Sales & Marketing office and an Operations office. The difference between the two is quite clear (I usually work on the operational side); you would be able to distinguish us as we have been known to have chipped nail varnish, often get covered in random substances such as paint or pollen, and have occasionally stepped in to become cloakroom attendants or even waiters. I like to think of us as the engine of a car, everything needs to work well and efficiently in order to run, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to see it!

If  we are the engine, then the Sales & Marketing office is the sleek bodywork of the Audi TT!  When I walk into the office I often think I can hear music, but that could just be me.  The brains of the operation is Richard (aka Charlie) also pictured, but as the saying goes, behind every good man is a good woman – or in his case three.

Harriet, Lisa & Natalie are definitely the Angels to his Charlie, each one more glamorous than the one before; these ladies have never been seen with lipstick on their teeth or ladders in their tights.  Even in the snow they still manage to glide into work in 4 inch heels. Apart from making men want them and women want to be them, they also happen to be very good at what they do. With honey toned voices they accept and deal with all range of enquiries in a polite and prompt manner, hence how I got into my little predicament.

 

These ladies are so capable they managed to bag themselves second prize in the Venuemasters Mystery Shopping Award – for those who don’t know, this is when someone rings up claiming to be a potential client with a fabricated enquiry in order to score us on how well we deal with this, from the initial call to the follow up.

One maternity leave and one holiday later, Charlie was down to just one angel on site, meaning he needed a stand in accomplice for the Venuemasters Annual Conference.  This is where I come in.  Knowing I had to look the part, I packed my most glamorous evening gown and glittery heels and spent the day networking, trying my best to do what I have seen the Angels do so many times before. Then we come to the evening, where winners were announced, and the prizes were doled out, and this, my friends, is how I ended up getting pictured in a nice dress,  receiving a prize which I had not really earned, and how I got to be an Angel for a day.