Larry Froelich, Former
VP of American Express Travel Management Services:
"The main reasons
we initially decided to use the Meeting Productivity Process
for our National Sales Meeting were that we were interested
in researching and measuring our attendees' pre-conference
morale levels and learning more about their training needs
and the general issues that were affecting the group. Our
plan was to use that information to determine the direction
and theme of the meeting, and we wanted to measure the
impact that the conference experience had on our people.
"We believe our
conference attendees are customers of the conference
experience, and we try to identify and satisfy their needs
as much as possible.
"The production
company proposed what appeared to be a very good system, the
MPP. It had some different elements. The convenience of the
800# tele-survey gave our people the ability to call in 24
hours a day, and the information was collected
electronically, so it could be done quickly. Also the
special meeting measures and research techniques and the
amount of ways you can turn the information were very
attractive. The reports gave us a lot of opportunities to
look at different facets of the information.
"We
received value from the process in a number of ways. One is
that we were able to confirm our thoughts about the levels
of people's feelings in the field. We wanted to know what
the morale level was, what people were feeling about their
job, the company, the marketplace, that sort of thing. The
research pointed out, in some cases, some issues that were a
bit hotter than we thought and gave us the opportunity to
address those things in the meeting.
"You can
sit here at headquarters and say 'I think I know what they
really want or what they're like or what the issues are out
there, but if you don't go out and confirm that you do know,
you could run into a problem'. I think the confirmation of
our feelings and impressions and what we thought was our
knowledge of what was going on was very important. The MPP
gave us an idea of which issues were the major issues from
the attendees' point of view, which ones were really hot and
which ones were not.
"The
second thing was learning about the levels of training, or
levels of sophistication, people were at so that we could
say that there is a large group of people who had a very
elementary level of education or knowledge of our business
or products and services, and that there's another group
that is more sophisticated. That helped us gear the
workshops and the other things that we did for particular
groups of attendees.
"Third,
it helped us figure out what the theme and direction of the
meeting ought to be. Having the information gave us a better
definition of people's needs and expectations for the
meeting.
"And fourth was
the measurement of the impact that all our work, prior to
the conference and at the conference, had on the attendees.
"Another
important value we see in using the process is as a measure
of return on our investment in the TMS National Conference.
With the MPP, we know with certainty that the conference
will be focused on satisfying the key needs of our
'customers'. It ensures we get maximum impact for our
investment.
"For the most
part, the meetings achieved the objectives we set out for
them. We started out with three objectives. One was reward
and recognition and I think we met that objective.
"Another
objective was educational. The process was really helpful in
terms of determining the content of the workshops, the types
of products and services we needed to address and on which
to further educate our people.
"Our third
objective was the social atmosphere. The process helped us
figure out the theme of the meeting and how much social
activity people needed and whether it should be more of a
pure team building experience or more of a pure social
event.
"I think the real
value of using the MPP in both years was that after looking
at the first year's post-meeting survey findings, we could
see whether or not we moved the needle in certain areas, and
the data gave us a benchmark to use as a gauge for the next
year's meeting.
"When we looked
from year one to year two, we saw what the levels were after
the year one meeting and what the levels were pre-conference
in year two. We had an idea what business issues impacted
those levels, so when we went to the field to survey
pre-conference in year two and asked the field, 'what are
your issues?'. Again the process confirmed some of the
things we knew, and it really told us a couple of other
things too in terms of the depth of people's feelings. It
gave us a clear picture of where people were at.
"Post-conference,
the MPP tells us what we did right and what we did wrong in
the meeting and what people will look for in the next
meeting - that's very important information.
"I would
definitely recommend the process. I think that anybody who
goes into a meeting like this and doesn't do a
pre-conference survey to either confirm or identify issues
and a post-conference survey to see whether or not what you
did really had an impact on people and was effective, I
think you're kind of wasting your time - you're flying
somewhat blind.
"We absolutely
would use the process again. We used it in year one and we
were very happy with it. We used it again in year two and we
were just as happy with it. And I look forward, quite
frankly, to the possibility of using it again."
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