The more runners in your race, the more problems the race director faces. There are a number of new techniques being used in Online Registration to help reduce the burden on Race Directors.
Runner Input Errors
How many times have you received an email from a runner saying “I made a mistake on my age.” Or “I mis-spelled my address”. Or “Can I use a different credit card?”
There are two ways to help reduce this. First, allow runners the ability to cancel a transaction within 15 minutes of signing up. We find about 0.7% of runners do this in RunSignUp, which does not sound like a lot. But if you have a 1,000 person race, that is seven problems you don’t have to deal with.
The second way to handle reduce runner errors is to make it easy for runners to log in and edit their profile information. RunSignUp has recently added a lot of new features to the Profile, including:
- Add your own picture
- Edit personal information
- Edit fundraising information
- Join, change or create teams
- Review their donations
Refunds
This can be a sensitive issue. The easiest way for a race to handle this is to have a “No Refunds” policy. However, this does not stop runners from asking for refunds. Nor does it help certain situations where a refund might be appropriate. For example, a runner who was registered for a race I help direct called a few days before the race saying her Mother had passed away and was wondering if she could cancel her race registration.
Having a formal refund policy with cut-off dates and a refund processing fee can help reduce the number of queries you get as a race director and make runners a lot happier. Making this self-serve can take the burden off of you. RunSignUp is now giving Race Directors the ability to set refund periods, as well as set a fee for processing the refund. RunSignUp takes care of everything for you and sends a check to the runner for their entry fee – less the processing fee that you set.
Bib Transfer
You always get this call – “Can I transfer my bib to my friend? I got injured and can’t run the race.” RunSignUp has also made this a self-serve option for races so runners can take care of this themselves without any involvement of the race director.
You can set up a processing fee (that you get to keep – increasing your revenue) for doing a bib transfer. It works in a simple way – the runner giving up their bib enters an email address for the friend. The friend gets an invitation to register for the race. Once completed, the original runner is automatically sent a check for the entry fee less the processing fee. The new runner has entered the race properly, signing the waiver electronically just like everyone else. The participant information is updated properly. And you as the race director don’t need to do a thing!
