When Dell Technologies hosts a large corporate event like May 2022’s Dell Technologies World (DTW) in Las Vegas, it’s Bennett Driscoll, Dell’s Global Marketing Events Manager, who is on the ground ensuring things run smoothly.
At DTW, Driscoll oversaw a team responsible for getting upwards of 1,500 meetings scheduled to showcase a variety of Dell’s latest tech innovations––not an easy feat. Luckily, he had Jifflenow’s eEvent to help get the job done.
A vocal advocate for eEvent’s scheduling tool at large corporate events, Driscoll took some time out of his busy day to tells us all about how Jifflenow has empowered Dell’s event strategy. We covered the roadblocks he feels Jifflenow helps remove in event scheduling, how eEvent makes his job easier, and even how it improves the quality of executive meetings by making them more efficient and intentional.
Learning about Jifflenow
Jifflenow: How did you come to learn about Jifflenow’s eEvent tool?
Bennett Driscoll: I’ve been using it since my day one here at Dell. My boss Sarah helped spearhead that contract before I arrived. It’s agreed on as a best practice around here. We are using eEvent as a scheduling tool for all of our events, whether it be domestic or international.
JN: How has using Jifflenow’s eEvent app helped empower Dell’s event strategy?
BD: The tool is just so user friendly and the customer success manager we have at Jifflenow has been amazing.
Jifflenow’s On-Site Support
JN: We know you had on-the-ground support at Dell Technologies World (DTW). Can you share with us how that helped your team?
BD: A KPI (key performance indicator) for us is just the number of meetings. Each event has a unique KPI, or measurement of success and with Dell Technologies World, the customer meetings were top of mind. We had a very small team so bandwidth and timing to pre plan were both paramount. Our customer success manager at Jifflenow was great, doing daily stand ups with us to get the tool ready because we had over a dozen different meeting types to schedule. Those each had its own specific tracks.
JN: We know you had upwards of 1,500 meetings at DTW. That’s amazing!
BD: Yes! And the on-site support was fantastic. I suggest that for anyone that’s having over 1,500 meetings, and like you said, that’s what we had. We were able to adapt quickly on the fly. When meetings change or ad hoc meetings come up, the tool really helps us by showing the availability of stakeholders and meeting spaces in real time, which is great. Another factor is just the seamless communication of updates about meetings. We can make the change if a customer isn’t there or if we need to make a change to the location or time.
eEvent’s Customization Features
JN: How did the customization abilities of the tool you spoke about earlier help your team at DTW?
BD: Being able to have that customization for each track was great because we are working with executives and high-level executives. With that being said, the tool really allowed for us to personalize meeting scheduling the way that we needed it to.
JN: What features of the tool really stand out to you as particularly important?
BD: First, I think about the customization between communicating meetings and confirmation of meetings via internal attendees, to our executives or their executive assistants and then external attendees. It’s huge that we can customize the automation of that. I also want to shout out how easy the tool is to use. Once you go through the training with Jifflenow and get acclimated to the tool, it really is pretty intuitive.
JN: How have other teams you work with inside Dell benefit from the seamless information sharing made easy with eEvent?
BD: For each meeting type, we put together a form builder, which we customized. With our 12 different meeting types, the form for each one is individualized so different teams can secure the information they want about a particular meeting, such as potential revenue or objectives. It was great to have that a la carte menu to collect whatever information you need when the meeting request is put in. That just helps me so much with managing who needs to be at each meeting and where the meeting needs to be.
eEvent Means More High-Quality Meetings
JN: And that then impacts the quality of the meeting too, right?
BD: Having that as an option, to collect information ahead of a meeting, is great. It just helps people hold a better meeting. Once these meetings are confirmed, often it’s executive communication teams that put together a whole kind of briefing book for the meeting. So collecting information is helpful for the briefing books. This way, an executive goes in having prior knowledge of what’s going on, rather than just opening the door and going into this meeting not knowing anything, apart from the customer’s name and company.
JN: So it’s one thing to be efficient with your time when scheduling, but you’ve also got to think about how to be efficient with the time of executives and customers to, right?
BD: I’m glad this is coming up because it’s something that we talk about a lot. It’s one thing just to book tons of meetings but also, how are you ensuring that the meetings are going smoothly and they’re high-quality meetings that yield something, right? Some of these meetings are 25 minutes, then with a five-minute buffer at the end. Our team is responsible for making sure that time is efficient and intentional.
