How ATS implemented a stress-free Registration process for Jacquelyn Helton at the Galveston Island Tourism Summit.
Jacquelyn Helton is the Director of Destination Services at the Galveston Island Convention and Visitors Bureau. Their CVB manages beaches, part of the Convention Center, and all of the tourism and marketing that involves Galveston Island. She works with all areas in planning The Galveston Island Tourism Summit and oversees the mainstage operations on the event's day. GITS is a one-day summit to provide training and resources to the many mom and pop organizations on the island.The Visitors Bureau noticed that those organizations weren’t able to get the resources, training, and opportunities to connect that you would get at a convention. This summit provides all of that for free to those that wanted to get the training they need, interact with others in the industry, and create lasting connections. Jacquelyn loves that her day is never that same, and she gets to interact with so many people while sharing about Galveston Island.
Before ATS, Jacquelyn’s most significant pain point was Registration. Managing who had and hadn’t registered, and making sure people were registering right became a struggle. Onsite, the biggest struggle was printing badges. Dealing with onsite changes and add ons became way too difficult to function properly. What seemed to be a small part of the planning became a painstaking process.Jacquelyn and her team used their current content management program before and could send out emails and garner Registration. Still, they weren’t able to know who they sent the email to and who had received it and who hadn’t registered. They moved to Constant Contact, but it was very cut and dry and limited in what they could do. It didn’t provide the add ons and things that could make their lives easier.
“The biggest difference in our annual summit since ATS has been the anxiety on Registration. Not only on our team, but on the attendees as well.”
Jacquelyn had discovered ATS through Tradeshows and, more intimately, Southwest Showcase. She could go into the booth and get a hands-on idea of how they could help her with her specific pain points. Ultimately, the responsiveness of ATS and how they fit into the budget made her decide this was the right fit for GITS. Once Jacquelyn and her team outlined the pros and cons and what they needed with what services they could provide, it was a no question they were making the switch to ATS.
“ATS was very responsive. Being able to see them at Southwest Showcase and interact with them was a huge point in making that jump”
Jacquelyn’s first impression of ATS was they were very customer service oriented. Never did it matter who she reached out to; they were all willing to lend a hand, and the responses were always prompt.“It was always ‘We can make that happen’ or ‘We can figure out a way to make that happen’. Never did they say, ‘We can do that for this price’. They were a part of our team and part of our event. ATS understood that registration was the first point of contact, so if that wasn’t enjoyable, then you already lose the momentum to the event”What made her most confident that making the switch to ATS was the right move was the day of the event. After the years before pre-printing name badges and the waiting time it took to find the attendees badge, it instantly became streamlined and automated. More so, ATS Registration took the anxiety of setting up from her team onsite.“We were able to know exactly how many people checked in, who was checked in, and not have to count name badges anymore.”The first year Jacquelyn worked with ATS, she could already see results. The registration process was more manageable and made her life more stress-free from the get-go. With the reporting through ATS Online Reg, the dashboard is very user friendly for finding the data she needs. She doesn’t have to pull reports, filter, or sort to find the information she needs. It’s all available to her through the dashboard tailored to her needs. Whatever Jacquelyn needed to have changed, the ATS Online Registration team could manipulate it at any time, giving her the information she needed, when she needed it. The most significant difference Jacquelyn has seen was the simplicity of check-in and not having to sift through hundreds of name badges. It made the check-in process easier not only on her team’s side but also on the attendee side, making for a great start to any conference experience.[cs_gb id=299]
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