Wallacespace offers well-equipped, contemporary and flexible spaces matched with exceptional service to encourage creativity and team collaboration at their events. With five Central London locations, including Covent Garden, Spitalfields, Clerkenwell Green, St. Pancras, and state-of-the-art hybrid meeting technology, Wallacespace caters to a broad range of in-person and virtual events.
When COVID hit, businesses across the UK were forced into lockdown, and Wallacespace venues were no exception. Determined to use this experience as an opportunity to improve their business, Wallacespace spent the lockdown period finding new ways of delivering events online and opportunities to streamline their existing systems and processes.
Recently, our CEO, Shaun Butler, met with Mary Thomas, Associate Director (Systems and Processes) at Wallacespace, to discuss the changes they made during lockdown that helped their business thrive despite the pandemic. Their first step was to make all of their buildings COVID-safe. From one-way systems to wearing masks, adopting rigorous cleaning policies, and conducting staff training, Mary worked tirelessly to ensure their venues are as safe as possible. As a result, Wallacespace achieved COVID-safe accreditation from the Meetings Industry Association, which meant that they could open for essential meetings as of August 2020.
As part of the process of becoming COVID-safe, one of the most important factors for Mary was finding a balance between prioritising safety while making sure guests could still benefit from the same, unique Wallacespace experience. She explains, “The people that have returned so far have said to us that we’ve got the balance right. We haven’t diminished the experience, but we also have made them feel really safe. So, for me, that’s a job well done.”
During the lockdown, Mary also took the opportunity to take a step back, review all of their systems and processes and digitise aspects of their business wherever possible. As a Priava customer, Mary wanted to employ some of our latest features so that their team could hit the ground running upon their return.
Firstly, Mary focused on designing new Custom Dashboards to improve workflows for various teams across the organisation by making it easier for staff to access the information that they need quickly and easily. For example, Mary explained that Custom Dashboards helped their Client Management Team to respond to incoming enquiries with ease. “Our Client Managers can now come in and, instead of having to search around for information, they now have it right there,” said Mary.
As part of their business review, Wallacespace also took the opportunity to use our API module to integrate their enquiry form on their new website with Priava. In doing so, all of the enquiries are recorded as Opportunities in Priava. The benefit of capturing enquiries online and syncing this information into Priava has meant a significant reduction in admin for their staff, and now, according to Mary, “they can really concentrate on working with clients and delivering the service.”
As well as Custom Dashboards and API, Wallacespace has also started utilising new features of our core CRM, including Custom Fields and reports to help with business development activities. These tools have allowed them to identify trends and gain better insights into their client base. In particular, they use information about existing bookings to identify clients to target for repeat business opportunities. For example, if one department within a large company has booked an event at Wallacespace, the team use this information to target other contacts at that company. Mary explained, “it’s using the system to help us make those connections and then also contact them at the right time.”
In combination with streamlining their systems and processes, during the lockdown, Mary and her team focused on how Wallacespace can cater to the changing requirements of in-person events and also worked to improve their hybrid and virtual event solutions. Mary believes that even beyond COVID, the impacts of restrictions are here to stay because businesses have been forced to rethink how they can get people together to work collaboratively in a smarter, safer, sustainable and more cost-effective format.
Wallacespace venues are now fully equipped best hybrid meeting technology and internet bandwidth to help you deliver premium virtual experiences. They also have tech experts from TV + broadcast media onsite to support their clients at all times because, in Mary’s opinion, “you can make these meetings really successful if you’ve got the right team of people and the right technology.”
Watch the full interview below:
