Disrupt[ed] – but in a good way

Disrupt CX 2020 conference transitioned from physical to digital in just 10 days, with 90% online attendance.

With just two weeks to go until Sabio Group’s annual Disrupt CX Conference planned at The Brewery in London, our events planning team was working flat out to make sure everything was ready. Disrupt CX 2020 was going to feature CX experts from all over the world, bringing together major brands, leading analysts and some of the world’s leading technology specialists.

But, with Coronavirus escalating across Europe, it quickly became clear that our flagship annual event would need to be postponed. Obviously, the safety of everyone involved – our clients, employees, suppliers and visitors – had to be our number one priority.

However, while obviously following Government guidelines, we were also determined that as a business we had to keep moving forward. We felt it was important to send a clear signal that Sabio was committed to engaging with our market. We took the decision to transition Disrupt from a 450-attendee physical event to a virtual conference, so – with less than ten days to go – Disrupt[ed] CX 2020 was born. Exclusively online, on the same day, just slightly shorter than originally planned.

As a cloud-first company, the digital delivery aspect wasn’t itself too challenging – indeed as a business we have successfully adopted a 100% home working model to minimise our collective exposure to Coronavirus. But we did have to deal with the reality of re-engineering our event into an entirely digital experience in a very short space of time, and with a Marketing/Events team that was now distributed across the country.

Remote catering, event broadcasting, digital communications and speaker participation was all organised to ensure that everything was in place for Disrupt[ed] CX 2020 on March 17th – our original physical event date. We partnered with Deliveroo to deliver lunches to delegates for them to enjoy during our virtual event. Digital communications kept delegates informed about Disrupt[ed], and we worked to ensure that the event featured the same high quality content and CX thought leadership – not just from Sabio but also from key customer and partner organisations including Computacenter, Forrester, Google and Twilio.

On the day all the additional planning paid off, with over 400 attendees logging in to our Disrupt[ed] digital broadcast – that’s around 90% of our original confirmed physical event participants. The agenda – an engaging mix of customer, analyst and vendor content – challenged our audience into thinking about how customer experience transformation can deliver real value for their businesses.

For those who weren’t able to attend, a full recording of Disrupt[ed] CX 2020 is available here, and we’ll also be hosting an extended physical version of Disrupt[ed] CX 2020 later this year – hopefully without unplanned disruption!