If you’re still using old-fashioned paper waivers for your release of liability, it’s time for your organization to upgrade. Online waiver software helps all sorts of organizations get more functionality out of this necessary pre-retreat registration step while minimizing hassle for users.
With software trends helping us automate marketing and registration functionality by moving everything online, why would you still use paper waivers?
First of all, paper waivers take up a lot of space. Your organization must have a very well-kept filing system to keep everything organized. And what would happen if there was a fire? Even with the best of insurance, how would you replace all of that vital information? Moving online is the safest option by far for enhanced safety and organization.
Plus, while paper waivers can be collected via email or other online software, scanned, and uploaded, this process can be difficult and time consuming. Meanwhile, online waivers are legal (as of the 2000 E-Sign Act) and hassle-free. With online waiver software, your organization can also better manage data with filter options to identify those who have/have not yet signed, people who provided certain answers to questions, and by name.
The real question, then, is: which online waiver platform should your organization invest in?
That’s why we’ve developed this guide. Here, we’ll guide you through 5 of the vital considerations your organization should keep in mind while conducting research about online waiver technology. These considerations to look for include:
- How can I feature the waiver on my organization’s website?
- Can my waiver software support multiple languages?
- How will my waiver platform encourage a safe retreat?
- Will my waiver platform make check-in easy?
- How will my waiver platform help me with future marketing endeavors?
Ready to dive deeper into these important considerations? Let’s get started!
1. Website integration
One of the most useful improvements that digital waivers can bring for your retreat is the ability for attendees to sign them ahead of time. When they have early access to the waiver, they can sign faster and speed up the entire check-in process down the line.
But how can you make sure your attendees have early access to the waiver? You make it available in the same location as the rest of your retreat details: your website.
When you’re looking for a software platform, have an idea about how you want attendees to find the waiver on your website. There are three primary ways that you can distribute your waiver to your attendees:
- Add a waiver widget to your website. Waiver widgets are the easiest way to make sure your attendees have access to the form. They appear as a tab, which can be clicked on and signed without ever leaving the site.
- Send a link to the waiver. Directly distribute the waiver to interested attendees with a link directly to the form. Send it out in your next marketing campaign for the retreat.
- Share the waiver on social media. Share your digital waiver on social media platforms so that your followers will quickly see and sign. This can also provide additional marketing for your retreat as you post about the ease of signing up.
- Add the waiver directly into the registration process. Instead of relying on an outside organization to handle your waivers, directly implement the signing process into your retreat’s registration.
Integrating the waiver on your site is just the first step. Distributing and marketing it afterward is just as important to encourage your attendees to sign. To read more about how these integration options work, check out Smartwaiver’s explanation.
2. Multi-language
Make sure your waiver is accessible for various audiences, no matter the language they speak.
Look for a digital waiver platform that has multi-language capabilities to ensure it’s accessible to a wide audience.
This is an especially important step to take for international retreats. You want people to feel comfortable with the agreement; the best way to help them understand and increase their comfort levels is by allowing them to read through the legalities in their native tongue.
When you’re looking at platforms, first, consider your audience. Think about the native languages they likely speak based on their geography or the other information stored in your CRM. Then, make sure the waiver platform supports that language (plus additional languages if possible!).
Make sure that in addition to multi-language tech, you’re able to fully customize the text of your waiver. This helps you add details about the specific retreat your signees will attend. You can even look into token technology to help automate this customization.
3. Safety Features
If your retreat will include specific activities or events that require a liability waiver for potential damages, look for a waiver platform that will help you reduce the likelihood of damages in addition to protecting your organization in case of their occurrence.
There are several features you should look for in a waiver in order to help make this possible:
- Customization of content. Be sure you can specifically discuss in the body of the waiver the risks associated with various activities.
- Inclusion of a safety video. Embed a safety video in your waiver so that your audience is aware of the dangers and how they can stay safe. Requiring the video to be watched in order to submit the waiver provides an additional level of protection.
- Flagged questions. Including flagged questions in your waiver will set up an alert when a specific answer is chosen. This informs your organization of any preexisting conditions or issues that may heighten the chances of an incident occurring.
Carefully choosing your waiver platform provides additional functionality that may not be offered through generic registration software like Cvent. We recommend using alternatives to these generic registration software platforms, like Regpack, in addition to your comprehensive waiver platform to obtain all of the functionality you need.
For further research about registration platforms, click here.
4. Check-in process
Offering the option for people to sign waivers ahead of time helps cut down on the time spent in line as attendees arrive at check-in.
While asking people to sign a waiver ahead of time will drastically speed up the check-in process on its own, there are additional measures you can take to make it faster still. Choose software that makes it easy to quickly check-in people who have registered and signed their waiver early upon their arrival.
You should also be ready to accommodate those who didn’t sign their waiver beforehand. This accommodation makes the signing process a quick and easy step, which also speeds up the line.
Look for waiver software that makes it easy to set up a kiosk and other signing capabilities at the check-in station for your retreat.
Some of the terminology you should look for on waiver websites for this feature include:
- Waiver QR codes. These make it easy for attendees to quickly scan a code and sign the waiver from their smartphones.
- Waiver kiosk. Instead of looking for additional kiosk hardware, look for a platform that can transform your on-hand tablet into a portable waiver-signing device for the retreat.
- Auto-photo capture. This feature enables your organization to take a photo of the person signing the waiver from your kiosk as an additional measure for security.
A faster check-in process leads to a better commencement of engagement for your retreat attendees. It kicks off their experience on the right foot.
5. Email marketing for the future
A major advantage of having a digital waiver is that you’re no longer using an extensive filing cabinet to organize data. If you were using paper waivers for your retreat, you’d need to manually input the data in a spreadsheet in order to digitize the data.
Digital waivers make it easy to collect, export, and save data that your retreat attendees provide in their forms.
The more information you collect and save in your CRM, the more personalized you can make marketing materials. For instance, collect attendees’ names, email addresses, preferences, and relationship information from your standard and custom questions on the template. This enables your organization to:
- Send out emails to your past retreat attendees reminding them of the awesome experience they had last time and encouraging them to come back.
- Keep track of those who signed up early for past retreats in order to encourage them to do so in future retreats as well.
- Continue hyping up your retreat attendees with a separate marketing campaign after they’ve signed their waiver.
Look for a digital waiver that integrates with the email marketing tool you use at your organization such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, or Emma.
Then, conduct research to find effective marketing email templates that you can customize for your organization’s specific needs.
Choosing software to serve the needs of your organization is never an easy process. It requires time, effort, and research to do effectively. Reading informational posts like this one is a great place to start! But your research shouldn’t end here.
Keep reading about online waivers and the potential software options with articles and referrals from review companies or other trusted software providers. For instance, Fundly’s article about online waiver software is a great next step for your research. Good luck!
