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Most Innovative CX Day Networking Event Winner: Istanbul Network

By Derik Iverson posted 12-10-2018 12:34 PM

  
After just announcing the CXPA Twin Cities Network as the runner-up of 2018's "Most Innovative CX Day Event," I am incredibly excited to announce the brand new Istanbul Network as winner of this year's Most Innovative CX Day Event award! The "Most Innovative CX Day Event" award is granted to CXPA Networks (volunteer local event planners) each year to recognize creative ways our volunteer leaders are choosing to celebrate the Customer Experience discipline every CX Day, and we're especially thrilled that Istanbul takes home the award as it was also the first local CXPA event they had ever planned.

CXPA uses a unique point system to grade all 24 CX Day events planned by our Networking volunteers. Each event was evaluated by how outside-the-box they were on the venue, topic, and activities. The Istanbul volunteers ended the race on top and I can't wait for you to learn their event's story.

I spoke with Gökhan Kara,one of the lead event planner for our Istanbul Network to learn more about how they pulled off such an innovative and heartwarming experience for their attendees:

“Describe your CX Day event. What were the planned activities?”

When it comes to organizing an event, we put all our efforts to design an outstanding experience; because we believe that attendees are the most vital part of these events and we treat them like we treat our customers from where we currently carry our duties. For this reason, we did not want to organize and plan an usual event, instead we wanted attendees to become more interactive, creative and share their best practices with one another. We had only one guest speaker, Diane Magers and hearing about CXPA from the top manager of the community had a good effect! We started with warm-up game, continue with Diane’s speech and got a networking break.

After the break, we had a benchmarking game, where we provided every attendees a set of questions for them to ask to other attendees about CX. Once, they completed this exercise, we asked attendees about their expectations for the upcoming events, so that we can plan events according to their needs. They wrote all suggestions to post-its and stick them on the large paper. We gathered 4 main dimensions from these suggestions; Keynote speakers, networking events, sector-based events and topics. We received positive feedbacks from the attendees where they felt part of the organization and valued. Towards the end, we had a competition via Kahoot (online interactive game) and asked questions about CXPA and CX Day. We handed out 3 books related to Customer Experience as gifts to our winners.

“Your event provided a lot of opportunities for guests to interact, think, and learn from each other. How did you come up with so many activities?”

We’re all CX professionals and we attended so many events so far. In these events you only listen the keynote speakers and learn from them. CXPA Istanbul Network has a lot of experienced CX professionals and our aim was to share their knowledge and help them learn from each other! At the end of the evening they did not only learn from a few keynote speakers, but also they got a chance to meet, talk and learn from a lot of CX professionals from different sectors and companies where they were able to share their best practices all together.

“Your event also had a surprise for everyone that attended during a networking break. Can you tell that story?”

During the registration process of the event, we have sent attendees a survey and asked following questions:

- How many years of work experience you have in the field of CX ?
- Which topics are you interested in?
- Which sector are you currently working as CX professional?
- What is your favourite coffee or tea? :)
At the end of the survey asked them to provide their name or nickname. We asked the last questions about the their favourite drink preferences to surprise them and nothing to do with statistical outcome. While first session was going on, team went to Starbucks and bought their favourite coffee with their names on it! They were really surprised when they saw 70 coffees in networking break and that action touched their hearts and created an emotional connection.

“What is your planning committee’s advice to other Networking teams to pull off such successful and innovative events like this one?”

First of all, establish a diverse team from different sectors.
Design an event experience journey.
Create an emotional experience during the event with attendees.
Involve the attendees to the activities.
Consider feedback from your guests for the following events.
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