The event had been well planned, informative and moved at a reasonable place. As far as I could tell it had been held without a hitch. I was really pleased.

The last speaker concluded his speech and everyone was filing out of the conference room. As I was about to step through the door I was handed a sheet of paper. It was a survey of some sort. I glanced at it and saw that it was a questionnaire I was expected to fill out. I folded it up and was about to tuck it into my jacket pocket when the person that handed it to me asked if I could fill it out and leave it on the table by the door.

I didn’t like being inconvenienced at the end of what was otherwise a reasonably well coordinated, seemingly professionally managed event. I placed the folded, but still blank survey on the table and left. I remember that at a previous event the same procedure resulted in me doing the same thing. In that situation though the questions were too numerous, and thus would take too long to read through and answer. I was in a rush to catch my flight home and I didn’t have time to waste.

I had attended another event that the organizers had used an online event planning and management software called Evenesis with an event survey/questionnaire module. The brochures and literature all include a QR code that could be scanned using a smart phone. The QR code was generated by the software and having it printed on everything meant attendees could scan it, open the online survey form and fill it out at their leisure. I suspected a great many people complied too because each completed questionnaire stood a chance to win some useful items, such as air-miles, a stylish leather brief case and an attractive pen set.

I learned later that the Evenesis system allows organizers to create the online questionnaires easily using provided templates. Best, the organizers can have the survey results compiled and made available in real time. I’m not an event planner, but it seems to me that making it convenient for attendees to fill out and submit a survey is far more practical than trying to get them to fill out a paper form. I have attended two other events since the one I left my blank questionnaire on the table. One used Evenesis and the other did not. I noticed the waste bin by the exit was full of tossed out survey forms, even though filling it out and returning it automatically entered attendees in a draw for a weekend get-a-way for two. Obviously I’m not the only person that will not spend time to fill in forms when I am homeward bound after an event.

— Shared by a participant attending a recent event in Kuala Lumpur–