In this awesome post on team collaboration by Neil Patel, he says that the key to keeping a team working well together is: “1. Good planning and 2. Using useful tools”. While planning is important, this post will focus on the TOOLS that every team can be using, with the right software, to effectively manage registration for their organization with their team.
We’ve talked at length before about how a registration software is a time saver, can increase your cash flow and increase your application completion rate, but another great reason to use a registration software is because it is a great tool to collaborate with your team on your programs.
Below are a list of 5 tools a registration software should offer that will help you manage the registration process with your colleagues.
Team Collaboration Tool #1: Admin Comments
Having the ability to add comments on any applicant is by far the #1 tool to make team management a breeze. The biggest issue with a manual process or a sub par registration software is keeping everyone up to date with an applicant’s status – who has talked to the applicant, are there any notes about that person that everyone needs to be aware of, etc? How do you keep this all organized and ensure no one misses an important detail? Admin comments!
Admin comments are a great space to log interaction, like phone calls, in person exchanges or any information that an admin has learned outside the information provided in the forms. Being able to view historical interaction with an applicant, to get someone up to date before speaking with them again or just to make sure nothing important is overlooked is really helpful to streamline communication and improves your customer service with your applicant. Comments that include a time stamp, which can be included in reporting, is even better.
Here is a video that will actually show you how to use comments
If your registration system does not offer this option you can try to use Asana. Things will not be as centralized and Asana in my opinion is better for ad-hoc projects than a registration where you need to know everything about the client in one place, but if you have a registration system that does not allow it then it is a good option.
Team Collaboration Tool #2: Applicant Labeling
Different types of visual labeling is a great way to allow admins to easily and filter through certain categories of applicants. For example, a green star for anyone who is a “VIP” applicant, a yellow star for anyone on a scholarship to your program, a red star for someone who is behind on payments, etc.
Not only do these help to visually view each program, event, etc, they allow you to determine important designations for your applicants that admins care about, use the filtering tool to search for them and easily target these groups for specific communication.
Team Collaboration Tool #3: Statuses
Similar to the labeling, mentioned above, statuses allow you to create unique labels for every applicant. For example, you can have ‘excluding statuses’ that archive applicants who are no longer accessing their accounts. A specific status can also trigger actions like emails, forms, products, schedules and more. You can also use a status tool to label the current status (ha! see what I did there!) of an applicant – paid, balance due, seasonal, etc.
Team Collaboration Tool #4: Saved Search Filters
One great reason to switch to online registration is the ability to truly USE your data. By use your data, I mean to gather it in a way that allows you to work efficiently and effectively with it – improve email communication, create great reporting for different members of your team, and keep your accounting balanced. Sorting through your data in the right way is achieved with a powerful filtering tool (a key feature to look for when shopping for registration software!).
Taking a powerful filtering tool a step further, being able to save filters you’ve created previously is not only a great time saver for 1 admin, but is an awesome team collaboration tool as well. If you as a team are constantly running the same reports over and over again, saving filters so that everyone can use them, saves time for everyone all around.
Team Collaboration Tool #5: Admin Forms
In addition to forms you have applicants fill out through your software, admin forms are forms completed and viewed only by admins. The form works the same as the forms your applicant sees, but the details captured in admin forms can also be used for reporting, emails, filters and more.
You can use admin forms to build better profiles of your applicants and help your organization grow!
Conclusion
I’m sure you are sensing a theme here by now. Any tool that allows you to classify applicants in many ways, means you can easily communicate with a unique set of applicants with a few clicks and create custom and detailed, effective reporting instantly. These tools are invaluable when it comes to providing great service and managing your business as a whole.
Working together as a team efficiently and effectively is easy when you have the right tools at your disposal. Just check out these minions below. By working together and brainstorming different ideas, they eventually get that broken light bulb out and find a creative solution to replace it! 😉
Learn more about Regpack’s registration software or request a free demo today!