You may have heard this term before, and you may have even made use of the feature for your own events, but in this article we’re going to tell you how to become a true master of custom questions.
Custom questions are a great way to gather additional information from your participants. Most registration platforms, especially in the athletic sector gather a certain amount of information from participants by default: address, age, team, emergency contacts, etc. but what if this doesn’t cover information you feel is necessary for your event?
Custom questions are so versatile that many event directors aren’t utilizing them to their full potential. Do you need to ask the participant a question about a post-event meal? Done! You can setup radio buttons or dropdown lists for participants to choose their lunch. What if you are giving away a free T-Shirt with each entry? That’s not necessarily something that should go in as a merchandise item since the T-Shirts are free. By using a custom question, you can give your participants size options, allow them to choose more than one shirt if you like, and also make it optional or mandatory. Having a custom question be mandatory is important if you absolutely need an answer from your participant. For example, you may want your participants to select a bus to take them back to the start line, or if they have food allergies for event meals, questions you don’t want ignored!
Custom questions are also great for more open ended responses. By selecting single-line or multi-line text boxes for the response field you can ask participants how they heard about your event; the results may end up surprising you!
Custom questions can also have costs associated with them, which is a great way for participants to buy lunch for them or their family, a camping site, an additional T-Shirt, raffle tickets, the list goes on.
Additionally, Custom questions can be category specific. So you can ask a specific set of participants an important question without confusing other participants who the question may not apply to.
Versatility is the name of the game with custom questions. You shouldn’t be limited in your registration platform in terms of what you can offer – take a look at custom questions when you setup your next event to really maximize your event experience.
For more technical information on setting up custom questions check out our athleteReg Knowledgebase Article.