Services | Registration Management Process

Registration and its related processes don’t typically get the focus they deserve.  Most people think these processes are so basic that they don’t warrant much consideration.  The registration/login page is often either one of the first things to be built in a new project or something of an afterthought — “What, no login page?!” (I’ve actually seen this happen, yikes).

Whether it’s recognized early on or not registration and its related processes are crucial to attracting and retaining customers, understanding who your customers are, where they come from, and why they’re knocking on your virtual front door, and enabling them to quickly and easily manage their own information without the need for time-consuming and costly customer support and without the risk of your valuable customers simply giving up in frustration.

Invitation, whether in an email campaign, at an industry event, in a web promotion, etc, precedes registration but is almost never considered until it’s needed, when it’s often too late to add it in a way that isn’t a hack or a labor-intensive workaround.

The registration process itself often collects the default username and password data without considering what else the business might like or need to know, when this additional information should be solicited, how all of this information should be protected, to what role(s) a customer should be assigned, etc.

As fundamental as login (authentication) is, it still gets done wrong in an astounding number of cases — weak passwords stored in the clear, custom rather than standards-based patterns and libraries, poor, misleading, or missing user documentation, etc.

And account management, which at the very least should enable the customer to change passwords, sometimes doesn’t even enable this either through oversight, misguided prioritization, or poor implementation.  This capability is a great opportunity to grow with and learn more about customers as we demonstrate our value and gain their trust.

This registration cycle is an engine that should then encourage your customers to rate and review your content, products, and services and to refer others, another kind of invitation, which closes the loop and starts the process again.

Let’s more fully appreciate and envision your registration process cycle, and enable the virtuous circle of invitation, registration, authentication, and account management!