Best Association® resources for association membership development, member benefits, event marketing, event registration, meeting planning, non-dues revenue, member retention, government affairs, and association jobs. Best Association® Resources Home Membership Development Member Benefits Non-Dues Revenues Event Marketing Event Registration Meeting Planning Government Affairs Association Jobs Web Strategy Print Strategy About Best Association Site Map Latest Comments  Trial memberships We used trial memberships a few years ago. It was...  Associate Members Associate members usually just want reasonable acc...  Great ideas Some of these are fairly ambitious, but in general...  Retention is the key I think retention is absolutely the key to effecti... Resources Home Event Registration Should our association offer on-site self-serve event registration? Should our association offer on-site self-serve event registration? User Rating: / 0 PoorBest  If you have ever been lost in the jungle of an automated phone directory while trying to reach customer service, "self-serve" doesn't immediately sound like a particularly appealing option for an association. However, your association is already providing self-serve options for your members during your online registration process. If designed correctly, that process should be quick and customer-friendly. There is no reason that on-site self-serve event registration cannot be just as user-friendly. As an added bonus, on-site self-serve registration for your association may also reduce your event costs and speed check-in times. There are three important things to keep in mind with on-site self-serve registration for your association's events: 1) Make your association's on-site self-serve registration system just as user-friendly as your online registration system. It may be that you can use the same system for both online and on-site making this easy to achieve. 2) Have your association's on-site self-serve registration system incorporate your member database. That way, members can simply enter their username and password or identifier and have the form pre-populated with their information. This will also allow you to continue to distinguish between association members and non-members in pricing and badge recognition. 3) Have an association staff person nearby in case someone does have questions or problems. One person may be able to cover several self-serve stations if everything is flowing smoothly. Having a live body monitoring the self-serve stations is equivalent to having a customer-service phone number on your association's online registration form - but even better. Offering on-site self-serve registration at your association events doesn't have to be the equivalent of the unfriendly voicemail jungle. Instead, it can be a fast, user-friendly option that makes your association members happy. It may also have the potential to reduce overall costs, and integrate very nicely with your main association database. Does your association offer self-serve on-site registration? Has it been warmly received by your association members? Comments Write Comment Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site.. Such material will be removed Name: Title: Comment: Powered by AkoComment 2.0.3! and SecurityImage 4.0.0   < Prev   Next > [ Back ]

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