Executive Summary

The North Carolina State University team works with various North Carolina state agencies to help put on events. They partnered with Whova for their clients after some of their colleagues had positive experiences with Whova. The North Carolina State University Team has used Whova for a variety of different events, including the State Energy Conference of North Carolina, the NCPMI Conference, and the subject of this case study: The North Carolina Community College System Conference! 

About The North Carolina Community College System Conference

The goal of the North Carolina Community College System Conference is to unite faculty and staff from North Carolina’s 58 community colleges to collaborate, innovate, and exchange ideas in support of the mission to promote social and economic mobility. The event focuses on empowering students to attain valuable credentials and build meaningful careers, and strengthening the state’s workforce through education. It also highlights their dedication to attracting and retaining exceptional talent and investing in professional development to deliver high-quality, accessible education to communities throughout North Carolina.

Challenges

High Printing Costs 

The North Carolina State University Team was spending an exorbitant amount of money on printing costs. With an incredibly detailed program, often exceeding 100 pages per booklet, attendees had to sift through extensive information to compile their agendas. Additionally, printed materials often did not reflect last minute changes.

Challenges Accurately Assigning Credits

Being an educational event, awarding a variety of different credits based on session attendance is critical. However, the complexity of the schedules made it challenging to accurately track session attendance and grant credits accordingly.

Lack of Exhibitor/Sponsor Lead Retrieval

Previously, the North Carolina State University team had no easy way of providing lead retrieval tools to their sponsors and exhibitors. Their only option was to individually get permission from each attendee to give out contact info, and then assign them to each exhibitor/sponsor. This led to a plethora of requests for lead scanning tools.

Solutions

Synchronized In-App Agenda 

By leveraging Whova’s in-app agenda, the reliance on bulky printed booklets significantly decreased, therefore reducing printing costs and keeping attendees in the loop with the most up-to-date agenda information. With 22,000 in-app agenda views and 1,200 personal schedules created in the app, attendees were able to conveniently access updated agenda information and curate tailored schedules for themselves.

Attendees used the in-app agenda at the event for finding all session information.

Session Check-In 

Utilizing Whova’s session check in feature enabled the organizers at North Carolina State University to seamlessly track attendance, making it easier to match sessions with the amount of credits awarded and simplifying the distribution of the data to the board.

The organizers exported all information for sessions to accurately assign credits.

QR Code Lead Retreival

With Whova, sponsors and exhibitors had their requests for lead retrieval tools met and expectations exceeded, giving attendees QR codes that can be scanned and provide valuable leads.  This solution saved the organizers at NCCSC significant amounts of time as they no longer had to manually give out all lead information to sponsors and exhibitors. 

Through the exhibitor portal exhibitors can scan attendee QR codes to retrieve them as leads.

“Whova allowed us to provide sponsors with the lead generation tools they’d been requesting and created opportunities for virtual attendees to interact with exhibitors. Now, Whova serves as an engagement tool, ensuring participants are learning, staying engaged, and taking away key information.” – Ashley Schwed, Program Coordinator NCSU

Conclusion

The North Carolina State University Team has successfully used Whova for many of their events and has seamlessly integrated it into all aspects of their event planning process. With Whova, they were able to incorporate Whova to reduce printing costs, track attendance and assign credits, and provide lead retrieval tools for their sponsors and exhibitors. 

Schwed noted, “Whova has aligned quite well with our event management strategy. Participants love using it, and when they return for subsequent events, they often already have the app downloaded and are familiar with its use. It’s seamless for both attendees and speakers.”

The North Carolina State University team effectively integrated Whova to ensure a positive experience to all new and returning attendees whilst streamlining their event planning process.