As Steve Jobs said, “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back to the technology — not the other way around.” Executive Briefing Centers (EBCs) were probably created with this sentiment. EBCs are a catalyst for developing and fostering customer relationships, and give prospects a first-hand experience of both current and future offerings in an environment that makes prospects go “Wow!”.
The role of the EBC has already started evolving and can accommodate better and customizable design aspects such as:
- Simultaneous briefing schedules
- Agendas focused on specific challenges and business goals
- Meetings with Senior executives and Subject Matter Experts
- Live demonstration to help prospects visualize solutions
- Executive 1:1s in informal settings or walk and talks across the facility
- Onsite concierge services to manage travel requirements
So how can a meeting at an EBC be a truly collaborative experience? How can it create an immersive experience of an enterprise’s values, people, products and partnerships? And how can it get them excited and ready to engage? How do you take the well-thought-out design and turn it into an experience your clients won’t forget? Here are a few key areas to focus on when developing high-impact executive briefings:
Start at the beginning
The engagement with your prospects should begin even before step into the EBC. While it is common practice to gauge participant interests with a pre-briefing questionnaire, it is also important to research the visitors using LinkedIn, Google, and company press reports to gain better insights and prepare personalized messaging and value proposition based on the researched context.
Involve a larger ecosystem
There’s no doubt that creating a memorable experience requires a lot of preparation. It should begin with a thorough understanding of the customer’s goals and success factors. You need to then extend the collaboration to a larger scope of stakeholders (internal and external) in order to marshal the right ecosystem of talent, perspectives, and solutions. Try and including remote participants who can collaborate with you on presentation material, objective planning, and outcomes. You can customize each executive briefing to include face-time with experts in specific topics critical to customers and partners.
Digitize the experience
Now this one is obvious and is something that enterprises have already been implementing at varying levels of advancement. Digital content, such as apps, videos, virtual walkthroughs, etc, has an almost limitless potential to amaze your customers. The best part is that they can be stored in a secure cloud for future access, and can be tailored and reused for future meetings.
Stay prepared with customer insights
The best way to lose your prospect’s interest is to show a set of cookie-cutter presentations of your company’s products, and value propositions without demonstrating that you understand their specific goals and problems. Use briefing visits for an open, well-balanced dialogue to extract insights and help your customers succeed. Customers are more willing to share such insights when you speak to them in a collaborative environment that fosters a “non-salesy” and free-flowing discussion.
We know that customers want more than to be talked to. They want an experience that feels both personal and authentic, which means the traditional briefing center must become an immersive space that bridges the gap between the customer and the brand. Obviously, the number of spokes that need attention in this wheel can boggle even the most efficient minds. Briefing Program Managers need to deliver strategy, architecture, and solutions that enable internal teams to achieve their business objectives by creating high-performance EBC experiences.
Jifflenow has created a cloud-based briefing technology platform that makes it easier for your Briefing Program Managers to deliver a glitch-free briefing experience. Intrigued? Reach out to us for a quick demo.
