Seven Factors to Consider When Designing an Executive Briefing Center

As companies face growing competition in increasingly noisy markets, catching and holding a customers’ attention becomes more challenging. One way companies are looking to differentiate themselves is with an Executive Briefing Center. When well-designed from both an aesthetic and technical standpoint, an Executive Briefing Center can deliver tangible business advantage.

What is an Executive Briefing Center?

An Executive Briefing Center is a dedicated space a company uses to demonstrate its products and services engagingly. It’s a place where salespeople can deliver a personalized experience and strengthen customer relationships while showcasing your offerings and how they can help customers meet their business goals.

The Association of Briefing Program Managers (ABPM) interviewed more than 11,100 external customers and 7,500 internal customers over two decades. (Electrosonic is a platinum member of the ABPM.)  Survey results showed that ‘executive briefings’ strengthen business relationships, have a stronger influence on the decision to purchase, increase the amount obtained and shorten the acquisition cycle. Also, 88% of survey respondents said they would recommend a company based on their briefing experience.

How to Design an EBC

While every EBC is unique, they all share a common goal: to enable you to demonstrate your products, services, and solutions in the best possible conditions. To do this, an EBC must be well designed and equipped with the appropriate technology. Here are seven factors to consider to help you implement an EBC that meets your unique business needs.

Define your audience. Your audience should influence the look and feel of the physical space. Consider who will visit the EBC, how many people will attend at the same time, how often people will visit, and their position within their company (employee, middle management or director level, for example).

Define the purpose of the EBC. Consider all the ways you’ll use your EBC. EBC’s are often used to demonstrate products, but you might also use the space to sell ideas, develop relationships, or increase the profile of your company or department to customers or other parts of the company.

Consider the customer journey. Think about your customer’s entire experience as he/she visits the EBC, including:

• The visitor’s route through the building to the EBC
• Who will meet the visitor and act as a guide
• Whether visitors will need to sign in or be assigned a pass
• If refreshments will be available
• The duration of an average visit
• If visits will be presentation-based, demonstration-based, or a combination of the two
• If presentations and/or demos will be one-to-one or one-to-many
• If visitors will receive a copy of the presentation and/or other documentation
• If visitors will sign out or hand in a pass

Script the visitor experience. It’s useful to sketch out a visit for each type of customer you expect. Defining the visitor journey in this way makes it easier for designers and technology specialists to configure and construct the space while implementing the right technology to achieve EBC objectives. Documenting the customer journey will also ensure that visits are scheduled for an adequate amount of time while ensuring that presenters stay on schedule.

Use audio/visual technology carefully. Once you’ve planned the customer journey and drafted a script, it will become clearer where technology can support the visitor experience. However, don’t implement technology for technology’s sake. It needs to add value and complement solutions and products on display. It’s a good idea to speak to an experienced audio-visual consultancy like Electrosonic that can suggest appropriate technologies that deliver a wow factor while being reliable and easy to use and maintain.

Use an experienced team. The most amazing EBCs are built by teams of specialists, including architects, interior/exhibition designers, project managers, mechanical and electrical consultants, quantity surveyors and cost control, lighting designers, audio/visual specialists, builders, fit-out contractors, and electricians.

Maintain your EBC to achieve optimum results. An EBC that works reliably will help you avoid embarrassing moments like a client presentation failing due to technical issues. Consider a service agreement that covers the audio/visual technology and, if the Center is used daily, a remote monitoring solution so problems can be fixed 24/7.

An Executive Briefing Center can play a valuable role in a sales and marketing strategy. When you present your products and solutions uniquely and engagingly, you make your brand more memorable, giving you the edge over the competition.