Certain Event Automation Software vs. Webex Events (formerly Socio)

Certain is great for easy-to-use registration sites. It collects all information and user can upload reports easily. It's great to copy the event if you are doing an annual one where the information doesn't drastically change. I love being able to create the link in under an hour and send it out to all attendees. I can also send one large email out to all participants

Incentivized

I think it would work for:

• Workshops with many people.
• Quarterly's meetings with people all around the world.
• If you want to create a digital training with lots of participants...

I feel like it's not as needed in videocalls that can be fixed with webex teams because of the number of participants or at events that need a more personal approach where you need everyone constantly interacting.

Incentivized

• Easy to use and create
• Easy to pull reports once event has been sent to attendees
• Great way to gather a lot of information

Incentivized

• It has quite a few optional and customizable features that can be utilized.
• It's easy to integrate your existing tools like Zoom, YouTube, Vimeo, and streaming services.
• It's flexible in the way that you upload content in that you can enter things one at a time on the website, or use a spreadsheet to upload a larger amount of content.

Incentivized

• Dashboards: It's quite important for leadership to get a visual of what their event registrants look like (with graphs, for example). Now, Certain does not present a feature to create dashboards, so we have to export their reports and create our dashboards ourselves.
• UX when setting up an event: Now this can be quite complex, as it's not as easy to use or intuitive. Many different tabs with many different sub-items can present a confusing experience for newcomers when building an event.

Incentivized

• The standard template to build out the community is pretty rigid. We had to adjust some of our styling and graphics to account for what Socio's template allowed.
• Inability for event admins to make account changes for users. Several times we had users change jobs, therefore, changing their emails. Each time, we had to go through Socio support to get them access to their account.
• Documentation and knowledgebase could be more substantive.

Of course something could happen to our orgs ability to put on a conference or Socio could fundamentally change their product or their customer service - but barring any magor shift there is nothing that is even close to competing for our attention here.

Incentivized

Some Android users could not get the app to work, so they had to use the web-based version of our conference guide. Most functionality was still there, but they could not pull up the QR code, which impeded the registration process. The presence of the log in with Apple ID button caused issues because most work emails were not attached to Apple ID, which caused access issues.

Incentivized

Socio (now WebexEvents) is one of two products I use that gets customer service right. Not only can you get an answer from an actual person quickly during business hours - but if you are asking after hours, you know the response will be waiting for you in the morning. Not only are they fast, but they are also smart about their products and customers. There is very little back and forth trying to explain the problem I am having, or the new way I am trying to use their product, that may even be novel for them.

Incentivized

Sympla or Eventbrite are great for smaller events that don't require a lot of information from your audience or extensive communication from your event owner. They are better suited for those events, since they are easy and quick to set up. Certain comes in for your tradeshows or recurring events, since it presents a calendar view of your field marketing events, as well as full form customization, automation of email sequences, reporting, etc. It's more complex to use, so you might as well hand it over to people who are well used to setting up events.

Incentivized

WebEx Events has the same functionality as many other platforms, but with a more affordable price tag. I have also found it to be more intuitive and easy to use on the user side. I don't have experience on the administrative side with other platforms but we have been very satisfied with our experience with WebEx Events.

Incentivized

• Certain helps to deliver a great customer experience, since it facilitates automatic email delivery and your company can keep them connected well before or well after an event.
• Certain presents a wide variety of reports, which perfectly addresses any request for visibility coming from your organization.
• Certain's configuration settings are quite complex, so our newcomers are not comfortable using the software at first.
• In case you need a more visual representation of your audience, Certain, unfortunately, does not generate dashboards.

Incentivized

• We had more sponsorship applications than usual due to using Webex and the multiple sponsorship capabilities.
• We had more attendance than in previous years due to using Webex since it is so incredibly user-friendly.
• We increased ROI by using Webex over other platforms due to pricing and features.