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King's House is the central meeting place and conference center of King's Church, in Manchester, UK. Located on the edge of the city center, with excellent public transport links, the venue is a versatile solution for a range of conferencing needs. Offering a total of nine small, medium and large meeting and conference rooms spread across three floors, King's House is suitable for one-to-one interviews, small training courses and medium-sized workshops, or conferences for up to 650 people. The center also offers professional AV, IT and PA equipment and various foodservice options.
Graham Aves, Director of King's House Conference Centre, tells how following a big refurbishment in late 2004, the business started targeting the conference market from early 2005.
"We started small and have always sought to
grow at a sustainable and manageable rate,"
he comments. "Between 2005 and 2010, our
turnover has gone from £30,000 to £330,000."
Time-Consuming Manual Processes were Open to Error
During these five years, the business was using a completely manual system that involved a Microsoft Outlook calendar for all conference and internal bookings, and Microsoft Excel, to track and compare monthly and annual income and profit, and also for all updates prior to each event.
"This was an incredibly time-consuming
process, and the possibility of errors creeping
in was very real," says Graham. "To try
to counter this, every two weeks I would go
through each upcoming booking, checking that the
calendar tied up with the spreadsheet and the
booking form. We managed to only once double
book someone, which is probably quite
incredible."
Seeking Conference Management Software that Expands with the Business
King's House first started looking at introducing new conference management software in 2008, when their turnover was only half of what it is now, because, according to Graham, they foresaw that as they continued to grow, the potential for mistakes and wasted admin time would grow massively.
 "Frequently
the subject of conference management software
would rear its head but due to the nature of how
busy we all were, we investigated no further,"
Graham notes. "However early in 2010 things
were getting unbearable with the amount of admin
duplication work required to keep everything
up-to-date and synchronized, so we started
looking seriously at a solution."
Narrowing Down the Selection
Having listened to others' recommendations, and spent hours researching the Internet, King's House looked in detail at many commercially available solutions. They fairly quickly discounted two due to the fact their tech support was based in the US.
The first demo King's House saw was from NFS Hospitality. Graham says:
"My colleague Anthony and I were both really impressed by how easy the software was to use. We had a list of questions and the spec I'd prepared, and it was almost as if these had been seen beforehand. It became clear, very quickly, that this software would be perfect for our situation and after the meeting I said to Anthony 'I think we'll be hard pressed to find anything better'."
Graham tells how other demos followed which highlighted very good systems, but one was more suited to internal bookings as it did not have the facility to invoice, and another seemed much less smooth-running than Rendezvous. Another system was good but considerably more expensive than its competitors, so it was ruled out; another looked quite dated, and although cheaper, King's House felt that the extra cost for a better system would pay off in the long run.
The directors decided that they would prefer to buy an off-the-shelf system than go for a bespoke solution, even though this meant spending six times the amount.
The Clincher
A deciding factor for the final choice was when
Graham went to see Rendezvous in action at a
local business. "This lady was very
enthusiastic about the software, saying she has
used it in many locations over the years, but
that each time she implements a new system, she
always checks out the competition first to
ensure it still the best," he says.
The visit served to cement what Graham was feeling and so King’s House made a decision to go with NFS and purchased Rendezvous SaaS, the fully integrated, hosted Conference and Banqueting solution, in May 2010.
This advanced scheduling software is designed to help conference centers such as King’s House achieve successful and streamlined meetings and events programs, whilst all the time reducing costs.
"Once we placed the order, installation happened very quickly and efficiently. Our NFS trainer was very helpful and has been since, with minor support issues," explains Graham.
Huge Reduction in Admin Frees Up Time for Business Development and Marketing
Graham notes how Rendezvous was implemented a week after the training, and the business is currently getting up to speed with everything.
“But we’ve already noticed a massive
reduction in admin time associated with the
booking process, which will allow much more time
for business development and targeting potential
new customers."
In addition, he likes the fact that the documentation King's House now sends out looks much more professional than before, and changes can be implemented much more efficiently. King's House plan to start invoicing directly from Rendezvous at the beginning of their new financial year, in September, which will reduce admin time even further.
“My initial, positive feelings about Rendezvous following the demo have been confirmed. I’m really glad we took the plunge and look forward to our sales continuing to grow. I would highly recommend NFS
Rendezvous to anyone looking for a good
conference management system."
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