When an event meeting services company or corporate planner considers an audience response system rental, often times the conversation revolves around the cost of the units. This blog will focus on the hidden costs associated with paper systems which can perhaps justify the cost of an audience response rental.
MANPOWER SAVINGS: How much data are you going to collect from how many participants? Are you and your staff going to spend countless hours sorting through paper surveys?
With wireless audience response systems, you will be able to tally and display data and survey results immediately with no additional manpower needed at all! You will also be able to store the reports for analysis at a future date.
PRINTING AND COPYING SAVINGS: Electronic surveys will eliminate the cost of paper-based forms. In addition to the actual savings of printing, copying, and potentially shipping the forms to the meeting site, audience response system rentals are part of the “green” initiative (learn how to make your meeting green), and can be marketed in that way.
REDUCE TRAVEL COSTS: By offering a hybrid meeting or event with web-based remote polling, an event services company can gain simultaneous feedback from groups in separate locations across the world on a real-time basis.
INCREASE ATTENDEE PARTICIPATION: With paper based survey systems, 10 to 50% participation is usually considered a success. In addition, the results are usually skewed to the left or right of the response grid, often times leaving out the middle respondents.
With audience response rental units, attendee interaction is greater because of confidentiality. The audience members feel as if they can be more candid on the issues and ideas and participation is usually in the 80 to 100 percentile range.
Below is a table with estimated costs of the items above given one hundred, one thousand, or ten thousand attendees. Obviously, these costs can vary depending on the number of sessions your event holds, number of questions you ask your attendees, and how much traveling your attendees might do.
| Costs | 100 Participants | 1,000 Participants | 10,000 Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manpower | 10 hours x $25/hour = $250 | 100 hours x $25/hour = $2,500 | 1,000 hours x $25/hour = $25,000 |
| Printing & Copying | 5 cents x 100 copies = $5 | 5 cents x 1,000 copies = $50 | 5 cents x 10,000 copies = $500 |
| Travel | 10 travel x $500/each = $5,000 | 100 travel x $500/each = $50,000 | 1,000 travel x $500/each = $500,000 |
| Total Potential Costs | $5,255 | $52,550 | $525,500 |
