We just released a new option to make the deferral process much more streamlined for both races and participants. The new Defer via Race Transfer option will allow participants to automatically claim their deferral and register after renewing your race the following year. This eliminates the need to compile reports to generate coupons and reserved entries and can be managed entirely by the participant. Their original value that was paid is also transferred to the new race so they can register for free or pay the difference if needed.
This can be set up by navigating to Participants >> Participant Management >> Deferrals. Click on Defer Via Race Transfer Setup to expand the settings and choose the race event date to get started.
This will bring you to a new screen where you will set up the Deferral via Race Transfer settings. Select Yes to begin enabling the race-to-race transfers.
When transferring to a different race, the registrant will be credited for their original amount minus the transfer processing fee. This credit can be used to cover the event cost in the new event.
If you wish to charge for this process, you can enter the charge. The Cutoff Date is very flexible and you can extend this multiple years to allow someone that deferred from your 2020 race to claim this deferral for 2021 or beyond if needed. There are also settings that will allow you to either extend the credit amount to include add-ons or indicate that the credit should only be the event cost. (Note: By default the option to only allow the event cost to receive credit is checked. If neither option is selected or just the event cost option is selected, then only the amount paid for the event will be given as a credit. If both are selected or only the add-on option is selected then both the event cost and the add-on will be credited.)
You can set up your race to only give credit for a percentage of the full creditable amount based on the number of days prior to the event to which the registrant has deferred. You can make this any percentage up to 200%. (In the case of a cancelled race, you might want to give over 100% credit for next year.)
For this example, the race is giving a 125% credit of the original payment to participants that deferred due to a race cancellation. You can add multiple options. In the example below, if the participant claims their deferral within 30 days of next year’s race they would only get 75% of their original credit. If no options are added here then we default to 100% credit.
Next, select the transferable races. Not only can a participant that defers register for next year’s race, but if you offer other races, you can give your participants the option to defer to one of those instead. By default, the current race will automatically be selected.
You can create customizable messages to participants that will be displayed when a transfer is or is not allowed.
Once these settings are filled out and saved, participants can now claim their deferral once registration opens for the following year by going to their profile in the My Deferrals section. There are helpful links to view their original registration, view the race page, complete their deferral, or contact the race.
There are some additional Advanced Settings with the overall deferral settings as well.
You now have the ability to set minimum and maximum registration dates. This means that if you don’t want to allow participants that registered before or after a certain date to defer their registration, you can enter that range here.
There is also a waiver option so you can require a waiver signature when deferring registration. With this enabled you will have the full text editor to customize the language and require a signature from the participant when agreeing to defer their registration to a future year or race.
If you have enabled Deferrals for your race, here is what it looks like from the participant side. They have to agree to the waiver prior to confirming their deferral for this year’s race.
When you renew the race, participants will be able to claim their deferrals and, by doing so, register for the next year’s race. Races will want to send an email out to their deferred participants to let them know registration is open and how they can claim their deferred registration. To download a list of deferred participants, navigate to Reports >> Not Registered >> Deferred Registrations. Then use that list to create an email list by going to Email Marketing >> Manage Lists >> Create New List >> Upload Custom Contacts and upload the Deferred Registrations CSV. Name the list something like “2020 Deferrals” and then craft your email. The email should include instructions for participants to log in to their RunSignup profile and view the My Deferrals tab at the bottom of their profile to start the claim process. Make sure you include that if they don’t go through My Deferrals and instead register as a brand new registration, they will be charged full price.
Once a participant starts to claim their deferral, they will be prompted with information about their credit and instructions to complete the registration. If you added a custom message, that will also show up to the participant. After they successfully complete the registration process, they will be all set to see you on race day!
We hope these new settings help streamline the deferral process. We look to add more features around the deferral settings to help races better manage their participants in the future.
