Rebuilding a platform behind 20 years of conferences

At a glance

• 90% of bookings that used to end in a phone call now complete online
• Booking administration cut by 75%, freeing the team from hours of manual work each week
• On-demand went from an idea to on average 20% of total revenue

Jump to the outcomes

The problem

Getting from a conference programme to a finished booking was long-winded and caused a tremendous amount of friction. Plenty gave up and picked up the phone or sent an email instead, leaving customer support to finish the booking for them.

The team spent hours keeping conferences and bookings up to date across systems that didn’t talk to each other. That made mistakes more likely, and getting a clear picture of what was selling meant pulling data together by hand.

At the time, demand for recorded CPD content was also growing fast. On-demand was the obvious next step, but there was no way to build it on the old setup without adding yet more manual work.

The solution

1. Checkout for the people who actually book

Surveys showed that the person booking is often not the person attending. PAs book for executives and team leads book for their teams, but the old checkout assumed one person did both.

Booking is now split into task-based sections that adapt to the type of conference, whether it’s in person or on-demand. Separating the tasks makes it quicker for everyone, whether they’re booking for themselves, their boss or a whole team.

2. Every conference in one place

Conferences, programmes, speakers, documents and video used to be spread across separate systems. They’re now consolidated into one platform, where each is created once and used everywhere.

All past bookings were migrated too, and every booking now keeps a snapshot of the conference as it was sold, linked to its invoice. Pull up one from three years ago and you’ll see exactly what was bought, even if the programme has changed since.

3. A booking workflow the team can rely on

Bookings run through a workflow that sends confirmations, reminders and attendance certificates. Programmes, brochures and evaluation forms are generated as PDFs from the website content, so they never drift out of sync.

4. On-demand, built on the same platform

Each recorded conference reuses the programme, speakers and documents already on the platform, so there’s nothing to set up twice.

For the first time, delegates can buy an on-demand conference and get instant access, with a passcode generated as soon as they book. CPD certificates are self-service too, so attendees download their own once they’ve met the requirements.

5. Data you can talk to

Directors can ask an AI copilot questions in plain English, like how many people logged in to an on-demand conference, how many watched a recording, or what the attendance rate was. Anyone who prefers their own AI tools, such as Claude or Microsoft Copilot, can connect those to the platform instead.

Customer support use it too. With bookings and payments in one place, they answer questions confidently without checking with someone more senior first.

Outcomes