Pet peeves revealed
Have you ever had to find a Lady Gaga costume for a six-foot-tall, 65-year-old man in just a day? Or witnessed an attendee eating a 20-year-old gingerbread house on display at a hotel? Maybe not, but the actual list of meeting-planning oddities is endless, and the list of what could go wrong is even longer. And, as a result, so is the list of planners’ pet peeves.
Smart Meetings spoke to a cross section of meeting planners to hear their stories and find out what irritates them. Here are their top 11 pet peeves.
1. Inadequate response from suppliers. According to Gary Hernbroth, chief motivating officer with Training for Winners, who hosts several planner panels and workshops each year, the lack of a timely, accurate response from suppliers is one of the biggest complaints he’s heard from planners throughout his 33 years in the industry. “Planners say that hotels either send responses back with parts missing or there’s an overkill of something they didn’t ask for, such as the history of the property,” he says. “[The proposal] can be like reading a Jane Mitcham novel.”
2. Errors in contracts. How venues deal with contracts is a significant source for gripe. Tracy Stuckrath, CSEP, CMM, CHC, president and chief connecting officer for Thrive! Meetings & Events, recently worked with a venue that sent her a contract for a completely different meeting space than she expected. “Someone else had sold the space that [the salesperson] had proposed to me, and she sent [the revised contract] to me without even calling,” Stuckrath says. She has also been sent contracts without an address indicating where she needs to send the payment. Devon Stiles, CMP, a partner at Bright Meetings & Events, has received contracts with other clients’ names on them or wrong phone numbers listed. “There are so many errors in contracts that you find and have to correct, and it takes up a lot of time [to fix them],” she says.
3. Hidden charges. Stiles recently had to bring in an outside caterer because the venue where she was holding her event didn’t have catering facilities. She didn’t realize until further in the planning process that she also had to pay for additional rental equipment because the facility didn’t have a kitchen, either. “That nickel-and-diming that comes through later is unprofessional and creates a level of distrust between you and the vendor,” she says. “I want to make an educated decision up front. It’s like pulling hair.”
4. Not being prepared on site visits. Hernbroth says several planners are bothered when suppliers don’t do their homework or know anything about their company. Stuckrath seconds this. “On site visits, respect my time and don’t take me on a three-hour tour when I only need to see one section. If you’ve read my RFP, you should know,” she says.
5. Neglecting a personal touch. Stuckrath has received several nonpersonal e-mails to her business, and she deletes them every time. “Find out something about me. Go on LinkedIn and look at my resume to see where I’ve been. Figure out what the personal angle is, instead of making a blind contact,” she says. She also appreciates when venues know her preferences and those of her guests. For instance, she can’t have dairy, and when a plate of cheese ended up in her room on a site visit, it irked her because she couldn’t eat it and the supplier wasted money.
6. Insufficient knowledge of meeting space. Planners love to be creative and appreciate it when venues know their space and offer suggestions on ways to use it. On the other hand, when they don’t, it can be a problem. “Some of the hotels just don’t get it,” says Sue Walton, co-owner of May and Williams, Ltd. “Or they have too small a property but claim they can fit us.” Stuckrath notes that some hotels put people in sales manager jobs who aren’t familiar with the venue, especially when they’ve cut back the sales force. “They’re [contacting me] from a call center and have never even been to the property,” she says.
7. Websites aren’t up to date. Stuckrath points out that because planners do a lot of research before they even pick up the phone, up-to-date websites and capacity charts are key.
8. Venues don’t clean up. Walton says that nine times out of 10, her planning office isn’t cleaned. “It angers me when venues do not clean. Now I get surprised when [it] even happens.”
9. Slow package delivery to the planning staff. At an event, timing is everything. When the hotel staff takes too long to deliver packages—or, even worse, loses them—planners have to go to a plan B or C. Or they have to drop part of their program altogether.
10. Losing Wi-Fi onsite. A spotty Internet connection can sometimes make or break an event. Walton says it bothers her that “you can never tell when you book a spot if and when [the Internet is] going to go down.” (For more on Wi-Fi, see pg. 28.)
11. Understaffed catered events. When planners have to pour wine at their own catered events, that takes them away from attending to more critical matters, such as whether or not the program is running on schedule.
While it’s no surprise that peeves exist—especially with the economy sparking a do-more-with-less trend in the industry—it is surprising that they are the same ones from five years ago. “This is not a new phenomenon. Maybe two of the 10 peeves have changed in the last four years when I put together my presentations,” Hernbroth says. “Buyers still want trust and an honest and open relationship. That hasn’t changed either.”
Hernbroth points out that work needs to be done on both the planner and supplier sides, but that it will take “extra work, extra time and extra due diligence.”
Stuckrath admits that “planners really need to understand what the goals and objectives of the event are and share those with the vendors, the lighting company and so on, and then they need to help execute those [main] objectives.”
Open communication between the planner and supplier is the obvious first step to improve the business relationship and avoid recurring problems.
So, what’s your biggest pet peeve? Join the conversation with industry peers online at smartmeetings.com.