Registration Data Should Impact Your Event Software Decision
Like with cars and appliances, finding the right Event Registration Software requires you to search through a sea of options. Every company that provides this application has some features that make it unique, but in truth, event registration software will almost always work no matter who you buy it from.
Your purchase decision will not be based on “will it work?” Choosing the right event solution will come down to finding the best process that supports your organization’s needs. The process that Event Software is based on dictates what you can do with the data, and your organization’s needs may dictate how you need to use the data. Here are three examples of different approaches to how an event system uses registration data.
Does your registration system learn about people and save them time for repeat visits?
Does your event system require that people re-enter their contact information each time they register? If your event system is storing event registrant’s information, it should be able to automatically complete registration forms for returning visitors. Your registrants can enter some info such as their name or email address and the system can automatically pull up their information and complete the registration form for them. This saves them time in registering and reduces the likelihood that someone accidentally makes a mistake on the order form and gives you bad information.
How does the event system deal with registration history?
Your event system should allow you to create an event history for each event attendee that gives you a list of all the previous events each person in your database has attended. Now this may not be a priority with your organization, but if it is, then you need to see how the database works where attendee information is stored.
How can mistakes be corrected?
You will never get through an event with 100% correct information. People cancel, they want to substitute, they spell things incorrectly, they stop the payment process; many issues arise during an electronic transaction with lots of people. You need to make sure that your software allows you or the registrant to correct information. If you are considering allowing your registrants to edit and change information make sure that you can still control what they can change or you could end up with people attending your events for free.
In the next part of this series, we will explore more elements of what your organization might want to do and provide tips on additional elements to think about as you purchase of upgrade your event software.