Out of the Box Use of Cvent Event Management, but everything has its quirks!
Updated July 24, 2023

Out of the Box Use of Cvent Event Management, but everything has its quirks!

Lindsay Buchanan, CMP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review

Overall Satisfaction with Cvent Event Management

We are an enterprise user, therefore, we use quite a few of the Cvent product modules. We currently use Event Registration, Sourcing, Abstract Management, SMM, Membership Management, and Email Marketing. The Event Registration Module allows us to be fairly flexibly with our event setups for each of our clients as well as internally. We pride ourselves on thinking outside the box where Cvent Representatives would have not gone. We have currently implemented the product 80% in our Meetings & Conferences, Group Travel and Association Management team--services not fully utilized are SMM and Email Marketing. The rest of our company utilizes mostly the Sourcing Module, however, there are times when the Event Registration Module is used accordingly. It has really helped streamline a lot of our previously manual processes--ie. Paper registrations, manually processing credit card payments, manually sending/mailing paper receipts to registrants are just a few.

Pros

  • Sourcing - Love how the system allows you to create one lead and it sends it to as many hotels/locations you wish to send it to. Additionally, it provides instant feedback on whether or not a hotel/location can accommodate your request. If you receive a submission, these are reportable from the system, not manually collated by a staff member.
  • Event Registration - Love the ability to create an online process to allow registrants the easy on registering online.
  • Surveys - Integrates an event survey automatically to easily track and remind attendees

Cons

  • Reporting - this can be somewhat difficult to use and clunky. It doesn't always pull all the information the first time you run it, and sometimes requires more than two times of running the report to get all the data needed. There is no way to report on Session Groups and this has been frustrating for over 11 years!
  • Membership Management - seriously lacks an update or the functionality needed for most associations. Was created more for corporate membership programs not association membership programs. Very clunky and difficult to use. We have had to use custom questions to help with the reporting side of membership as the standard reports are limited and do not represent the requested or needed data.
  • Abstract Management - has improved the most over the last year, but still doesn't allow a review to see more than 100 submissions at a time.
  • Account Management
  • User Management
  • Strategic Meetings Management
  • While it is unfortunate, we have eliminated the need for about 3 positions that managed the manual processing of registration forms, payments, and invoicing/receipts.
  • We have cut the overall time of creation of a registration website for a simple setup to a few days were in the past it was taking about 2 weeks.
  • While it has gave us efficiencies, it has hindered our process for Association/Membership Management. The ROI we get from the Event Management, Sourcing, and Abstract Management is completely off-set by the lack of efficiencies from the Membership Management side.
I like how this integrates with the Cvent Registration setup for each event. It allows you to push most of the content from your website, workshop descriptions, speakers bios, schedule, etc over to the app so that you do not have to build these sections of the app, only make slight modifications.

Do you think Cvent Event Management delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Cvent Event Management's feature set?

Yes

Did Cvent Event Management live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Cvent Event Management go as expected?

No

Would you buy Cvent Event Management again?

Yes

It is well suited for event registration, sourcing, abstract submissions, and meeting management. They are currently updating these areas for the upcoming FLEX release, however, it would be hard to recommend Cvent for membership management due to the lack of updates that have been done to the module or the clear lack of willingness to do so.

Cvent Event Management Feature Ratings

Registration, RSVP, and ticketing
8
Email marketing
8
Livestreaming
5
Audience engagement
5
Event recording
7
Virtual booths
4
Networking
5
Event analytics
7
Live chat
5
Audience polling
5
Q&A
5
Branding options
8
Integration to Marketing Automation
7
Attendee list export
8
User authentication
6
Participant roles & permissions
4
Confidential attendee list
Not Rated
Calendar integration
8
Meeting initiation
8
Integrates with social media
8
Record meetings / events
Not Rated
Slideshows
Not Rated
Event registration
8
Responsive Design for Web Access
8
Mobile Application
5
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
5

Using Cvent Event Management

12 - Meetings and Events, Group Travel, Business Travel, and Accounting
2 - Two of our staff are Certified Event Management Professionals in the Advanced Level.
  • Event Registration
  • Sourcing
  • Membership Management
  • Abstract Management
  • Exhibit Hall Management
  • Advertising/Sponsorship Package Sales & Management
  • To be determined as we are currently an enterprise user.
Historically we cannot find another product that offers the flexibility and usability that we need for our staff and our clients.

Evaluating Cvent Event Management and Competitors

Yes - Isis Gold
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
We needed a complete system to help in all areas of our processes with registration, sourcing, etc.
Unfortunately I was not in the selection process as this was the product the company used prior to my involvement with the team and company.

Cvent Event Management Implementation

Was not involved in the implementation.

Cvent Event Management Support

Support has suffered greatly since COVID and you can tell that the legacy understanding of the Cvent system does not exist any longer. It feels like you are dealing with a manual verses a person most times as the standard answer is have you deleted your cache, cookies, and temporary internet files or even closed and reopened your browser. There is supposed to be a premium support line for certain client levels and it doesn't offer any better support than the primary support line number.
ProsCons
Problems get solved
Slow Resolution
Poor followup
Less knowledgeable
Escalation required
Difficult to get immediate help
Need to explain problems multiple times
It was included and doesn't offer any better support representatives or help route your calls to more seasoned representatives. While it might help expedite the call waiting process, it doesn't help resolve the problems experienced.
Yes - Too many times to count. Most of the time they are due to improperly tested system updates that have an adverse effect on other areas of the system. Unfortunately, Cvent has never utilized power users to test updates as I have suggested for years as the testing scripts that a created by the product teams traditionally only address potential issues with the new updates.

Using Cvent Event Management

I am a user for over 15 years and while they say anyone can use Cvent, you need to have a basic understanding of website management or technology in general to easily understand the system.

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