Beyond Asking The Right Questions: Considerations for a High-Quality Roundtable Experience

Hosting a roundtable is a significant investment for companies, research firms, and participants alike, so getting it right from start to finish is essential. When organizing a roundtable for executives, creating the right experience is critical as these individuals have little spare time. In addition, executives will participate more openly and enthusiastically if they’re made to feel appreciated and well-treated than if they’re simply shuffled through the process. 

A holistic approach to creating a high-quality experience is vital for extracting the best insights, and for ensuring that participants will be open to working with you and your client again in the future. Asking the right questions is one element of a strong roundtable performance, but it’s also the most superficial. Here are some other considerations to take into account when hosting a roundtable for business executives and industry thought leaders.

Make the event easily accessible.

An in-person roundtable offers a unique opportunity to gather high-quality insights from participants. One of the first ways to show respect to your respondents is to choose a venue that is centrally located and easily accessible. Ensure that there is parking on-site or very close by and consider paying for their parking. If your event is in a city where most people use public transportation, make sure that your location is located very near to several major transit lines. Anticipate every opportunity to make it seamless for your attendees to arrive and to do so in a good mood. 

Going an extra step further by actually providing transportation to the location – or even roundtrip – is a surefire way to create a positive experience, and guarantee participation. Investing in a smart location and providing transportation will return dividends when your participants are happy, relaxed, and eager to offer their best to you because they recognize their unique contributions are valued.

If you are requiring COVID-19 testing, make this process as non-invasive as possible. Mail home-kit tests to your participants in advance or host a rapid testing service at the venue. Ensure that all participants have their vaccine cards provided ahead of time and are aware of all procedures.

Give as much detail as possible about the location, how to access it, transportation considerations, COVID testing requirements, and any other elements. 

Leave a generous time buffer.

Another simple way to ensure that attendees arrive feeling relaxed rather than rushed is to build in a generous time buffer for your event. This is especially important if you are hosting your roundtable in a major metropolitan area such as New York City or San Francisco where traffic, transportation delays, and other travel snafus are commonplace. Leave at least half an hour between when you ask attendees to arrive and when the roundtable begins. Make sure you are transparent about this buffer so that participants don’t resent waiting around for the event to start. Additionally, transparency ensures that if an individual is stuck in traffic or otherwise delayed they remain un-stressed because they know that they aren’t actually running late. You can accomplish this by listing an arrival time and a start time in your event description. It may seem like this buffer is a waste of time, but actually it relieves the pressure of arriving just as the event begins and gives people the opportunity to use the restroom and enjoy refreshments – which brings us to our final and most critical point. 

Be a good host.

Remember that you are hosting a roundtable, which you have invited participants to join and which they are taking time out of their busy days for. All of the principles of being a good host apply to this type of event. Create a convivial atmosphere by allowing time for mingling. This will also help participants relax and share more openly, as they will naturally let down their guard while chatting. Introduce yourself to participants during the reception period and offer to answer whatever questions you can at that time. Ensure that restrooms and directions to them are clearly labeled. Consider hosting your roundtable at lunchtime both because it’s convenient and because serving lunch allows you to offer an extra incentive for participation. Make sure that if you do serve lunch that it’s a quality meal, even if it’s simple, and ensure that there is something for everyone. You can either ask for dietary restrictions in advance or simply ensure a variety of options are offered. Do provide food and drinks no matter the time of day your event takes place, this is a basic courtesy that immediately and easily improves the experience.

Be human-centric from start to finish.

Too often the human element is left by the wayside as firms search for the best participants and the most useful insights – getting bogged down in creating the perfect set of questions without considering how to get the best answers for those questions. By centering your roundtable efforts on creating a great experience, you’ll set yourself apart and make it more likely that participants will provide open and honest responses and that they’ll be eager to work with you again. Put people at the center of your best effort and they’re sure to give you their best in return.