From Face to Face to Virtual

History/Background

When Covid-19 took over the World and all Face to Face meetings ground to a halt, many healthcare and pharma clients found themselves in unchartered territory with many meetings still needing to go ahead. Although High 5 Events have delivered virtual healthcare events before, the industry exploded with new options – time for an update. Just like meeting venues, different online platforms offer varying benefits, so it was important to choose the one which met the objectives.

Challenges

• Despite Covid-19 our pharma client needed a series of training meetings to take place. These meetings have been running for many years and have a very well-known format.
• High 5 Events had previously limited exposure to virtual meetings, so our first challenge was to pivot to deliver virtual meetings with the same level of dedication, professionalism, style and presentation. The meeting experience was just as important to the delegate, but the delivery method would be very different.
• Training for the healthcare professionals involved needed to be highly interactive, enable various templates to be annotated by more than 1 delegate and involve breakout groups for our multi-lingual attendees who were dialling in from around the globe.
• Many different presenters were involved within the meeting series, so a user-friendly platform was key
• Zoom fatigue was already becoming an issue

Delivery

• After reviewing the new technology available we confirmed our AV partner who could support with a digital platform that was ideal for a series of training meetings.
• High 5 Events arranged training for the speakers to get the most out of the platform but also to make it as invisible as possible so the focus would be on the training content.
• We provided clear instructions to the delegates about how to join the meetings, and troubleshoot any audio, video or wi-fi issues.
• Rather than a traditional 1-day training meeting, the sessions were set up over a 5-week period with each one lasting no longer than 3hrs to better hold people’s attention over the virtual platform.  
• All functions within the platform we exploited: breakout rooms for smaller discussions, annotations for group workshops and polling questions to break-up the sessions and maintain engagement from the delegates.

Outcome

The interaction went above and beyond what the clients expected, and the overall feedback was that this platform truly suited the requirement, and indeed discussions are being progressed with the client team regarding other internal and customer facing webinars.