Choosing the right Venue Management CRM is a critical decision that directly impacts your venue’s efficiency, revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction. However, many venues fall into common traps that lead to underperforming systems or wasted budgets. This guide explores the biggest mistakes when selecting a Venue CRM and how to avoid them.
One of the most overlooked aspects of Venue CRM selection is integrations. Most venues rely on a suite of different products to manage their business – products like email marketing platforms, accounting software, online payment gateways, lead generation platforms and project management systems. If your new Venue CRM doesn’t integrate seamlessly with these platforms, you’ll end up with fragmented workflows that create inefficiencies. For example, manually exporting and importing customer data between systems wastes time and increases the likelihood of errors. Ensure your Venue CRM provides tight integrations with commonly used platforms or open APIs for custom connections.
A CRM that fits your needs today might not meet your needs tomorrow. Many venues opt for cheaper, smaller solutions that can't grow with their business. For instance, an on-premise system may seem like a cost-effective option initially, but over time your venue will probably need more flexibility and the scalability provided by good cloud-based platforms. Your CRM must handle increased complexity without sacrificing performance as your venue expands to host larger events or open additional locations. Choose a system designed to scale in both features and transaction volume capacity.
A robust Venue CRM is worthless if your team can’t use it efficiently. Complex and difficult interfaces can lead to frustration and underutilization. A poor user interface slows down processes like booking an event, creating contracts, or managing room or staff schedules. Equally important is the software's stability—frequent bugs, crashes or downtime can disrupt operations and erode trust among your staff and clients. Always pay close attention to customer reviews and test the software's usability and reliability during your evaluation process.
As any venue owner knows, quick and easy mobile access is essential in a venue management system. Venue managers and staff need the flexibility to manage bookings, view schedules, and communicate with clients at various times of the day from different devices. Clients need to access, review and sign proposals, BEOs and contracts and make online payments 24/7 from any device. A CRM without mobile capabilities ties your team to their desk and limits their responsiveness. It also severely inconveniences your clients. Whether you’re finalizing event details during a site visit or your clients need to sign contracts and make online payments, quick and easy mobile access is key.
The initial price of a Venue CRM often doesn’t tell the full story. Many venues fall into the trap of focusing solely on upfront costs or low monthly fees, only to be hit with unexpected expenses later. Add-ons for essential features, extra user licenses, training or premium support can significantly inflate the total cost. For example, a Venue CRM may charge extra for analytics tools, integrations, multiple locations, additional users, training, customer support or advanced reporting features, which are all critical to long term success. Calculate the total cost over time, including setup fees, training costs, support costs and any additional charges for scaling.
Long-term contracts often promise lower monthly rates but can be a double-edged sword. If your business needs change or the CRM fails to meet expectations, you may be stuck for many months with a system that no longer serves you or forced to pay exorbitant cancellation fees to exit the contract. Flexibility to scale down during slower seasons or adjust features as your needs evolve is essential. Look for contracts with opt-out clauses or short-term commitments that allow you to reassess periodically.
Renewal terms are another area where venues often misstep. Many venue management CRMs offer discounted rates for the first year but include automatic price increases in their renewal clauses. You need to read the fine print to avoid an unpleasant surprise when your contract renews. Always negotiate renewal terms upfront and set reminders to review your agreement before it auto-renews.
With increasing privacy regulations and data breaches, data privacy and security compliance is a necessity. Choosing a CRM that doesn’t meet these standards could expose your venue to legal risks, including fines and reputational damage. For example, if your Venue CRM mishandles client data or lacks encryption, you could face lawsuits from clients whose information is compromised. Always verify that the platform complies with relevant data protection laws and offers data encryption and secure storage features.
Who owns your data? Many venues fail to ask this critical question during CRM negotiations. If your provider retains ownership, you may face challenges when switching methods or retrieving historical data. Always choose a CRM that guarantees full ownership of your data and provides export options to ensure a smooth transition if needed.
Data loss is a nightmare scenario for any venue. If your Venue CRM offers robust backup and disaster recovery options, you can avoid losing critical information like client details, booking histories, and financial records. Imagine the chaos of trying to recreate clients and events, event and room schedules, invoice and payment history, contact history and contracts from scratch after a system failure. Confirm that your CRM includes automated backups and recovery protocols to protect your data.
Even the most advanced venue management CRM isn’t immune to technical issues. During a busy event or busy season, a minor glitch can escalate into a major problem if you don’t have access to timely support. Unfortunately, many venues overlook support availability when choosing a CRM. Ensure your provider offers support through multiple channels like chat, email, and phone. Check customer reviews to determine the quality and responsiveness of their support team.
A Venue CRM is only as good as its users. Without proper training, your staff may underutilize critical features, reducing the system’s ROI. Look for providers that offer on-boarding programs, video tutorials, and ongoing training sessions, ideally at no extra charge. Investing in staff education ensures your team can fully leverage the CRM’s capabilities.
No two venues operate the same way, which is why flexible configuration setup and customization is crucial. A Venue CRM that doesn’t allow you to tailor setup options, website embeds, workflows, reports, and automations can stifle efficiency. An example, if you can’t adjust event types, lead sources, locations, rooms or areas, proposal packages or line items, contracts or booking processes to match your unique requirements, your staff may resort to workarounds that waste time, are cumbersome and render the CRM ineffective. Look for platforms that provide deep flexibility in setup and customization in multiple areas to align with your venue’s operations.
As your venue evolves, your CRM must adapt. Many rigid platforms struggle to accommodate new service offerings, increases in users and/or booking transaction volume, additional integration or feature requirements, multiple locations or changing requirements. For example, if you expand to multiple locations, your CRM should seamlessly handle the added complexity.
User access controls are vital for security and efficiency. Without granular user permissions, you risk sensitive data being accessed or edited by unauthorized staff. A good Venue CRM allows you to define user roles and restrict access to certain features, and edit, delete or view only access based on job functions, ensuring accountability and data protection.
Overlooking Major Features
Many venues underestimate the true impact that certain features can have on their operations. Automation, for instance, is not just about convenience—it transforms time-consuming tasks which may take hours or even days into streamlined processes that execute in seconds. Real-time reporting is another essential feature that many overlook. Without it, venues struggle to make data-driven decisions, relying instead on outdated or incomplete information.
Industry-specific platforms tailored for venue management take the guesswork out of operations. Unlike generic software, these systems provide an Event-Centric Architecture, address critical venue needs, such as a strong Master Calendar, quick and easy creation/edit of Location/Room/Area/Staff Scheduling, Automated Creation of Proposals, BEOs, Invoices and Contracts, Timelines, Tasks and Emails, Vendor Coordination, and Client Communication and History, ensuring your venue runs like a well-oiled machine.
Choosing a Non-Scalable Solution
We touched on this earlier in this blog, but a venue management CRM that can’t grow with your business will become a bottleneck. Imagine starting with a small, affordable solution. It works fine when you’re starting out, but as you add multiple offerings, new spaces, or even new locations, it can’t handle these new complexities of managing multiple venues, large-scale events, increased transaction volumes or expanded service offerings.
This forces you to either switch systems—a costly and lengthy process—or settle for subpar performance. Scalability also applies to pricing. Look for a platform that adjusts its cost structure based on your needs. Case in point, you might begin with basic features and scale up to advanced features like automated lead transfer from multiple platforms, accounting system integration, staff and vendor scheduling, multiple location support or additional platform integrations as your business grows. Without scalability, you’ll either overpay for unused features or face limitations as your venue expands.
Using Generic CRMs Not Built for the Industry
Generic CRMs like HoneyBook, Salesforce, Netsuite or Zoho might work for some businesses, but they often fall short of the unique demands of venue management. For instance, a generic CRM often lacks features for:
Venue CRMs are designed with these requirements in mind. They often include an Event-Centric Architecture and built-in customizable templates for proposals, BEOs, contracts, invoices and timelines, and event and room/area/resource scheduling tailored to venues' needs. Additionally, the best of these platforms typically offer fantastic automations to create these and many other items in seconds, and packaged integrations to many best of breed platforms.
Automation isn’t just a nice-to-have feature—it’s a game-changer for busy venues. Without automation, your staff may spend hours on repetitive tasks, such as manually creating leads, updating calendars, creating room/area or staff schedulings, proposals, BEOs and contracts, sending email reminders, or creating invoices. Over time, this takes enormous amounts of time, drains productivity, increases frustration and the likelihood of human error.
Many venues make the mistake of piecing together multiple tools for event booking, calendar management, contracts, and client communication. While this may seem like a flexible approach, it often leads to inefficiencies, data silos, and increased costs. For example, when different tools don’t integrate seamlessly, staff must manually transfer data between systems, which is time-consuming and prone to errors.
Not all Venue CRMs are created equal, and selecting one without carefully evaluating your venue’s priorities can lead to frustration and inefficiencies. For example, a platform might offer dozens of advanced features but lack essential tools like multi-venue management, duplicate booking protection, online proposals, contracts and payments or real-time reporting. This mismatch can hinder your ability to meet clients’ needs or adapt to changes in the industry.
When evaluating CRMs, prioritize features that align with your venue’s operations and growth goals. For instance, if your venue manages multiple locations, you’ll need a CRM with robust multi-location management capabilities. If your venue has heavy client credit/debit card payment transaction volume, you will need a platform which can support that. Similarly, real-time reporting is essential for tracking performance and making data-driven decisions quickly.
Choosing Event Booking Engines as Your Venue Management CRM
Selecting the right Venue CRM is a high-stakes decision—but with Event Booking Engines, you can rest assured you’re making the right choice. Designed specifically for event and venue managers, our platform provides all of the features your venue needs to streamline operations, enhance client experiences, and grow your business. Here’s why Event Booking Engines stands out:
By choosing Event Booking Engines, you’re investing in a cloud-based platform that simplifies your operations, improves client satisfaction, increases revenue, reduces cost, scales as you grow and sets your venue up for long-term success. Ready to see the difference? Request a demo today!