A major frustration for many groups on other platforms has been the continuing erosion of RSVP functionality. Other platforms seem to feel that users can’t handle groups that work differently. Yet this is an area where different groups have legitimately different needs (and on top of that, different organizers also have different personal preferences). Some suggestions for Rolls-Royce level customizability:
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Waitlist options:
- No waitlist
- Waitlist that automatically promotes RSVPs when spots open
- Waitlist that automatically EMAILS members when spots open, but does not fill spots
- Waitlist that switches from auto-promote to auto-email when a certain threshold has passed (e.g, 48 hours before an event). It is really silly to expect people to change their plans 2 hours before an event, when they suddenly get a spot.
- Manual waitlist – all RSVPs are waitlisted, and the organizer can add people as they are approved (e.g., if an unlinked payment is involved).
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Options for the order in which open spots are filled:
- By RSVP time
- By RSVP history. No-shows (and last minute cancellations) are a controversial topic for organizers who have events with limited attendance, where they may prevent others from attending and/or jeopardize future events (e.g., restaurant reservations). The “natural consequences” response of “that’s just how the system does it” is a nice, low-confrontation approach that saves the organizer some negative member interactions.
- By custom member grouping (set up by the organizer) – this is a nice way to encourage members to pay dues, for example.
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RSVP “Maybe” options:
- No “Maybe” – some organizers love maybe, and some hate it. This should be optional
- “Maybe” – for groups that are able to have casual RSVPs, this makes it a lot easier to guess how many people will actually show up.
- “Maybe” + members sent reminders to switch to Yes or No some time (48 hours?) prior to the event
- “Maybe” + members who have not switched to Yes or No have their RSVPs dropped in favor of any waitlisted “Yes” RSVPs some time (24 hours?) prior to the event
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Default RSVPs for repeating events:
- For groups that have the same event every week, it is helpful for regular attendees to be able to automatically RSVP for new instances (especially if there is an attendance cap).
- This is particularly helpful for organizers whose groups exist across multiple platforms, for example while they transition to DTM. Not many people are going to jump ship entirely until DTM builds up a user base, so making it possible for organizers to show “yes, we really do have a bunch of regular attendees!” here during that transition period would be helpful.
I know it’s more work to include features like this. But for organizers who have actual attendance management needs, features like this will get them to switch to DTM faster than anything.