Quality management in trade fair construction

As a project manager, you often ask yourself how satisfied the customer is with your work. With the planning of the exhibition stand, the assembly as well as the construction and dismantling of the stand. Also the quality of the exhibition stand itself and the graphics. Were there any shortcomings that need to be rectified for the next trade fair appearance?

In this blog post, I will show you what quality management in trade fair construction is, how customer satisfaction can be measured during a trade fair stand inspection and what advantages this brings for our customers and for us as a company.

Introduction of a quality management sheet

The handover of the exhibition stand at the event location often does not take place with the contact person with whom the project manager previously planned the exhibition stand. Instead, there is another representative of the company who can now inspect and assess the quality of the exhibition stand first.

This ensures that the project manager does not receive any feedback on the customer's satisfaction after a trade fair appearance and does not find out about any possible quality defects. Occasionally, our fitters report on how the customer found the trade fair stand, but direct feedback or an assessment of the quality of the trade fair stand and the service is often lacking.

In order to obtain this feedback, we provide our fitters with quality management forms for the respective event, which are handed over to the customer after the stand has been set up and completed by the customer. The stand handover is only complete once the document has been completed.

This form can be used to evaluate the entire trade fair service process, from project planning, online ordering, construction and dismantling of the trade fair stand through to the quality of the stand. In this way, we can use the report form to obtain the opinion of our customers and ensure continuous and long-term quality control. This ongoing process allows us as a company to work on points of criticism and constantly improve our cooperation with our customers. The result is a win-win situation for our customers and for us.

Structure of the quality management sheet in trade fair construction

First of all, the order number, the name of the customer and the name of the fitter are entered on the report form. This is done so that the responsibilities of the individual exhibition stands can be traced during a later inspection.

As soon as the customer has been given the quality management sheet, he can now begin to assess the quality of his exhibition stand. The form is to be filled in using the checkbox method. This process only takes a short time so as not to disrupt the actual work on the stand. After the customer has assessed the quality of the exhibition stand, wishes, suggestions or even criticism can be expressed in a free-standing field below. While the first part is mandatory, this field is optional.

To finally confirm the authenticity of the document, the customer must sign the evaluation. Once the form has been completed, the customer receives a copy from our fitters so that you can keep track of the quality of your exhibition stands over a longer period of time.

Tip: The quality management questionnaire is often filled out on the spur of the moment and a mark and signature are quickly added to the document. In order to maximize the benefit for both sides from this survey, the form should be filled out conscientiously.

Adapt the documentation of the quality management forms to the course of the trade fair

If a personal stand handover between customer and fitter is not planned or the customer cannot come to the planned stand handover, the information on the quality management form can also be sent to the respective contact person at the stand by photo. In this way, the stand is documented by photos and the form is deposited at the stand so that it can be filled in and taken away when the stand is dismantled. If this option is not possible, the responsible project manager will contact the customer personally and discuss the form with them. When the stand is taken over, the fitter takes the form back with them and gives it to the project manager.

You can also set up the quality management survey digitally and feed the evaluation of the trade fair stand directly into your customer relationship management. This saves you paper and allows you to transfer the results on the quality of the exhibition stand directly into your system.

Online viewing of the quality management sheets

The results from the quality management questionnaire are entered into the ExpoCloud webshop by the responsible project manager upon receipt. Customers can view all evaluations at any time via their customer access and thus track the improvement of points of criticism from the past.

This view can be found under the “Processes” tab by clicking on “Orders”. In this view, you can set different time periods in order to have several quality management sheets from the past listed directly. If you then select one of the orders, a page appears on which you can view the entry online under Quality management. A list of the order details, such as the number of items ordered and the conditions, is also displayed.

Tip: This view also gives you a good overview of past and upcoming projects. In addition to the order date and the status of the order, you can see a lot more information about your own exhibition stands.

Conclusion on quality management in the trade fair industry

Checking quality management in trade fair construction is important both for our customers and for us to ensure satisfactory cooperation. Errors and quality deficiencies can be quickly identified and avoided for future trade fair appearances. The quality management questionnaire keeps the customer survey process as simple as possible and yet efficient.

Do you record the quality of your exhibition stand and the set-up and dismantling service? If so, how? Please let us know in the comments!