Looking to improve online registration for your organization? A seamless, mobile-first registration process can dramatically increase registration conversions and reduce customer abandonment.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to transform your outdated desktop-based registration into a customer-centric experience that works perfectly on smartphones and drives more signups.
Author’s note: Olivier shares tips and tricks he’s learned over the past decade as the owner of a kids’ soccer program. Today, as co-founder of Activity Messenger, he helps hundreds of classes, camps, and academies across North America simplify their organization’s management and increase revenue.
Picture this: A parent wants to register their 5-year-old for gymnastics for the first time.
They visit ABC Gymnastics from their smartphone during their lunch break and immediately encounter friction:
Frustrated, they tell themselves they’ll complete registration once they get home.
But here’s what happens next:
On their evening commute, they see a Facebook ad for another gymnastics club. This time, the experience is completely different:
✅ All information stays within the gym’s website, with no jarring redirects
✅ No account creation required to browse or register
✅ Three simple questions instantly customize the schedule to show only relevant classes
Within seconds, they choose their preferred class, sign the waiver, and pay on their phone.
Registration complete.
This scenario plays out thousands of times every day. The difference between losing a customer and gaining one often comes down to friction. Every extra step, every redirect, every confusing interface increases the chance they’ll abandon the process.
Now let’s explore how to create that seamless experience…
You’ve heard it before: “optimize for mobile.” But optimization isn’t enough anymore.
The shift we need is more fundamental: rethinking your entire registration process from the ground up with smartphones as the primary device.
Here’s why this matters more than ever:
More people prefer registering on the go than ever before. A mobile-friendly registration process isn’t a nice-to-have feature; it’s the foundation of a modern customer experience.
Every moment of friction costs you customers. If your registration doesn’t work seamlessly on mobile, you lose anyone who lacks immediate access to a laptop or desktop. This becomes especially critical when you’re investing in Facebook or Instagram ads that drive traffic directly to smartphones.
Mobile screens are small. Every element, every question, every image, and every piece of information must earn its place. A complex process that works adequately on a desktop becomes completely overwhelming on a 6-inch screen.
The goal isn’t just making your desktop experience fit on a smaller screen. It’s creating an experience designed for how people actually use their phones: in brief moments throughout their day, often while multitasking.
💡 Pro Tip: Modern platforms like Activity Messenger let you create fully customizable, mobile-first registration forms from the ground up—designed specifically for smartphone users rather than adapted from desktop layouts.
Making your desktop registration accessible on mobile doesn’t make it mobile-friendly. You need to completely recreate the experience optimized specifically for smartphones and other mobile devices:
The journey from discovering an activity to completing registration should feel effortless. Minimize steps and eliminate unnecessary complexity at every turn.
Your customers shouldn’t have to scroll through endless class lists to find what works for their family. This is where conditional logic transforms the experience.
Instead of overwhelming visitors with every available class, guide them through personalized questions that automatically narrow down their options.
Each answer leads them to the next relevant question, filtering out everything that doesn’t apply to their situation. Within a few clicks, they see only the classes that make sense for them.
Your registration process should be fully customizable to meet the specific needs of your organization and your clients. Yet most online registration platforms still offer a one-size-fits-all process.
You should be able to customize every aspect of registration, such as adding, modifying, or removing questions, to match how your business actually operates.
Make selecting classes or activities as simple as possible with clear categories, intuitive filters, and search functions that help users find what they need quickly.
💡 Pro Tip: Every dance studio, gymnastics club, and swim school I’ve worked with recently has moved away from “show all classes” registration to a “guide the client” approach. They start with simple questions parents can answer—age, skill level, class type, preferred days—and within a few clicks, clients see only the best options for their specific situation. This approach dramatically reduces decision fatigue and abandonment.
Flexibility in payment is the key to accommodating a wider audience and reducing registration abandonment. The right payment strategy can dramatically increase enrollment while improving your cash flow.
1. Increased Enrollment and Conversion Rates
When potential customers see payment flexibility, it lowers the financial barrier to entry. This can be particularly appealing for families or individuals on tight budgets who might otherwise hesitate to sign up.
A $500 gymnastics session might seem daunting upfront, but when broken into four monthly payments of $125, it becomes immediately accessible to more families.
2. Improved Cash Flow Management
Multiple payment options can lead to more consistent cash flow. Payment plans, in particular, provide a predictable income stream, allowing you to better manage your finances and plan for future expenses.
Rather than receiving all revenue at the start of a 12-week session, automated payment plans ensure steady income throughout the session period.
3. Reduced Administrative Burden
Including payment plan options with an automated system like Activity Messenger significantly reduces the time and effort required to manage payments manually.
This automation allows you and your staff to focus more on improving the quality of your classes, rather than being bogged down by administrative tasks like chasing down missed payments or manually processing installments.
Essential Payment Options:
Advanced Payment Features:
💡 Pro Tip: For Canadian businesses, you can integrate Interac e-Transfer payments directly into your registration form using a form builder like Activity Messenger. This payment method is familiar to Canadian families and often preferred over credit cards.
Automated confirmation emails are essential for keeping registrants informed and engaged. These communications confirm registration details, provide necessary information about upcoming activities, and offer a clear point of contact for questions.
But confirmation emails are often treated as an afterthought, a basic receipt sent automatically without much thought.
This is a massive missed opportunity.
Research shows that 64% of consumers consider purchase confirmations the most valuable messages in their email inbox. Welcome emails achieve 70-80% open rates, which is far higher than typical marketing emails.
This makes confirmation emails your single most valuable touchpoint for setting expectations and preventing post-purchase anxiety.
At a minimum, your confirmation email should include:
A well-crafted confirmation email can dramatically decrease support requests. When you customize your confirmation to answer common post-purchase questions and set clear expectations upfront, you prevent confusion before it happens.
Sportball Laval saw a 40-50% drop in post-registration inquiries simply by improving their confirmation email content.
Most registration software offers minimal personalization options for confirmation emails. This results in generic, impersonal messages that fail to engage customers effectively.
The right platform should allow complete customization—including images, videos, personalized details using merge fields, and relevant links to resources.
A comprehensive confirmation email plays a crucial role in reducing buyer’s remorse, that common feeling of doubt that can occur after making a purchase.
Including information about what to expect next enriches the customer experience and builds confidence:
✅ Detailed event information
✅ Preparatory steps to complete before the first class
✅ Checklists for what to bring
✅ Parent guides with answers to common questions
✅ Links to helpful blog articles or resources
This approach confirms they’ve made the right decision and increases their confidence in your organization.
📌 Read More: Activity Messenger is class management software for gymnastics clubs, dance studios, summer camps, and swim schools.
Maintaining your brand identity throughout the registration process is crucial for building trust and confidence.
The last thing you want is for customers to click away from your beautifully designed website to an outdated registration platform.
This disconnect creates unnecessary doubt. Customers wonder if they’re in the right place, whether the site is legitimate, or if their payment information will be secure.
With Activity Messenger, you can embed the entire registration process directly on your website. This keeps customers in a consistent, familiar environment from start to finish.
We integrate with Canva to ensure you maintain a complete brand identity, from social media ads through checkout and confirmation emails.
Consistency throughout the customer journey strengthens brand recognition and builds trust. When every touchpoint looks and feels cohesive, customers feel more confident in their decision to register.
A great way to improve your registration process and help increase your conversion rates is to automate your waitlist management.
Here’s a concise action plan to improve your waitlist management:
By implementing these strategies, you transform your waitlist from a simple queue into a dynamic marketing tool that actively drives registrations.
📌 Read More: How to retarget abandoned forms and 11 simple changes to improve conversion rates.
Once you’ve created a seamless registration process, the next step is getting more people to discover it and sign up.
One of the most effective ways to increase revenue is to grow an engaged audience through email marketing.
Here are proven strategies to build and leverage your subscriber list:
These strategies transform email marketing into a powerful tool for nurturing leads and driving conversions.
💡 Pro Tip: We gained over 100 new subscribers in less than 10 days during peak registration periods simply by adding an email subscription form to our website. Many parents visit from ads or search results when their child is still too young, or they’re unavailable for the current session. These are high-quality leads who are happy to share their email address and become customers in future sessions.
Streamlining Registration in 20 Minutes
Lynda V., a Property Manager in the hospitality industry, transformed her organization’s registration process in record time.
“Activity Messenger is so much more than communication. We chose it because it looked like it would fully support our mobile strategy, we quickly learned it allowed us to do so much more. What is best is it was so easy to set up and start using, my last system took hours and multiple calls with ‘Specialists’, I did this in 20 minutes and only had 2 questions which were answered in minutes.”
By prioritizing mobile-first design, Lynda’s organization eliminated the friction that was preventing customers from completing registration on their smartphones.
Personalizing the Registration Experience
Sarah B., an Administrator for a sports organization, discovered that personalization was the key to better customer relationships.
“Activity Messenger makes communicating with your customer base a breeze while also making your customer feel like they are getting a communication that was uniquely made for them. It is easy to create and manage class lists.”
The ability to customize confirmation emails and use personalized placeholders transformed how Sarah’s organization connected with families, reducing post-registration questions and improving satisfaction.
Consolidating Tools and Reducing Costs
Catherine D., a Member Services Manager at a Canadian non-profit sport organization, eliminated redundant subscriptions by choosing a comprehensive solution.
“We replaced both Mailchimp and Survey Monkey with Activity Messenger as well as continue to find new ways to utilize AM in our daily work. It’s such a robust and easy platform to use.”
After nearly two years, Catherine’s organization continues to discover new efficiencies, proving that the right registration platform does more than just handle signups.
📌 Read More: You can check out additional Activity Messenger reviews and customer testimonials on our dedicated Capterra page.
A seamless registration process is no longer a luxury—it’s essential for staying competitive. By implementing mobile-first design, conditional logic, flexible payment options, and automation, you can dramatically reduce registration abandonment and free up staff time to focus on program quality rather than administrative tasks.
The organizations that prioritize customer experience in their registration process consistently report improved conversion rates, reduced support queries, better cash flow from automated payment plans, and more time to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional programs.
Ready to transform your registration process?
📅 Book a free demo to see how Activity Messenger can help you:
Not ready to switch completely?
No problem. Many organizations start by using Activity Messenger alongside their current registration software. You can use it initially for just email marketing, digital waivers, event ticketing, or surveys, then gradually expand as you see the results.
Start with one improvement today, and watch your registration experience transform.
