FAQ: Troubleshooting Guest Registration Problems
- 1 Important! Before You Start - Read This!
- 2 “I clicked the link in your email but it doesn't work!”
- 3 “I'm trying to register but it won't let me / won't save my registration”
- 4 “I keep being asked to click security pictures and I can't register.”
- 5 Link Problems:
- 6 “The link is wrong / sends me to Seatrobot”
- 7 “I copied the Registration link and sent it to someone / posted into another social media application and when they publish it, it doesn't work”
Important! Before You Start - Read This!
Most issues that will be reported to you by guests trying to register or accept invites will be Internet-related. By this, we mean that something on the recipient's end is not working.
Seatrobot is a robust platform with over 99.99% uptime. If you set up your events correctly, invite people using the regular features, and distribute the correct registration links it is highly unlikely that any issues your guests face will be due to some issue on your side.
On your guests' side though are many variables that are out of your (and our) control. These include Internet connection problems, company security systems, out of date web browsers, spam filters, wrongly-configured computers, un-supported devices etc. And, because Seatrobot allows you to deal personally with your guests and receive feedback, you will get to hear about people's issues.
Our experience tells us that on average about 1-2% of all the individuals your event touches will come across some Internet / web browser / security / firewall issue, especially if you are dealing with many corporate contacts. That's about 10-20 people per 1,000. You should expect to have to answer questions and offer solutions to these folks if you want to maintain a high level of service.
Below we list the most common issues your guests may report to you and how to help them get around them.
Remember - you will save a lot of time if you assume the issue is on your guest's side and help them fix it quickly and simply.
“I clicked the link in your email but it doesn't work!”
This could be someone clicking the registration web page link in an email, or trying to click either the Confirm or Decline buttons in an invite.
First, as always, make sure you have distributed the correct link if you are sending out the registration page link. You should always send a test email to yourself before sending any email to people via Seatrobot. Click the links yourself in the test email to make sure they are correct.
If the links / buttons are good, there are usually only three possible reasons for links 'not to work' when a recipient clicks them:
Problem #1 - Internet Connection: they’re actually not connected properly to the internet. This sounds unlikely, but it can happen. A recipient could be reading an email they downloaded previously and have subsequently lost connection to the Internet without knowing it.
Fix: check with them to make sure they have an internet connection. Ask them to load your company website for example, or download their latest emails.
Problem #2 - Security or firewall issue: their email system / computer network at their place of work does not allow them to launch web browsers from their email, or their web browsers are configured to not be able to go to 'outside' web pages. Sometimes company security systems remove parts of the link when displaying it in their employees' emails. This is quite common in companies such as banks, legal offices, financial institutions, for example.
Fix: ask them to right-click and copy the link or the button and paste it into the address bar of a different web browser. Alternatively, they can try to access using their own mobile phone. As a last resort, ask them to forward the invite to their personal email, and click the link on their phone or even using their computer at home.
Problem #3 - Internet Explorer users: some companies still use a deprecated version of Internet Explorer. This affects less than 2% of Internet users in the US. If this is their company's default web browser, it may launch automatically when the recipient clicks the link in the email from you. You may therefore find that a number of people from one particular company have the same issue.
Unfortunately Seatrobot (and Microsoft!) no longer support these old browsers, which present severe security issues and cannot handle the latest web technologies.
Fix: Again, ask them to right-click and copy the link and paste it into the address bar of ANY other browser - e.g. Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge etc.
“I'm trying to register but it won't let me / won't save my registration”
This issue can apply to people attempting to register for your events using the Register page. Firstly make sure they are using the correct link and have actually arrived at your Register page. If that is the case, here are usually only two possible reasons for subsequent problems:
Problem #1 - Internet Connection: they’re actually not connected properly to the internet. This sounds unlikely, but it can happen. A recipient's internet connection could have been interrupted while attempting to register.
Fix: check with them to make sure they have an internet connection. Ask them to load your company website for example, or download their latest emails.
Problem #2 - Internet Explorer users: some people / companies still use a deprecated version of Internet Explorer. This affects about 2% of Internet users in the US. Unfortunately Seatrobot (and Microsoft!) no longer support these old browsers, which present severe security issues and cannot handle the latest web technologies. It could be that the browser managed to load the registration page, but after they filled in their info, the browser cannot connect correctly to Seatrobot to send us their information.
Fix: Ask them to go back to the link, right-click and copy it and paste it into the address bar of ANY other browser - e.g. Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge etc.
“I keep being asked to click security pictures and I can't register.”
When a guest receives a personalized invite from one of your events and clicks the 'Confirm' button, they are sent to a confirmation page which displays in their web browser. Before this confirmation page can load and register your guest, a Google reCaptcha security check is performed. This process makes sure that a real person is clicking the Accept link in your email, and not an automated program or 'bot'. Without this security step, your event could be flooded with erroneous confirms and declines.
Very occasionally, a guest's company's browser security settings or firewall will not allow this security check to take place and your guest can be kept in a security check loop without getting through to the registration page.
If you receive a report of this, you can forward the affected guest the link to your event's Registration page and ask them to copy and paste it directly into the web address bar of their browser.
Link Problems:
“The link is wrong / sends me to Seatrobot”
This is usually related to the Register or Ticket Page links. Always check that the link you are sending to people works. Do this by right-clicking and copying the link and pasting it into the address bar of a new browser window, or by 'hard-refreshing' your browser by refreshing the page while holding the Enter / Shift key. This will make sure if you have opened the same link before, you are not now loading a cached version.
“I copied the Registration link and sent it to someone / posted into another social media application and when they publish it, it doesn't work”
Problem #1: Many corporate email security systems put links contained in emails thorough vetting procedures to make sure they're safe. When they do this, they add lots of additional information to the link 'behind the scenes'.
Here's an example of the format of an original Registration page link:
https://register.seatrobot.com/5fb5809545d3826084deea3c/606ce00182a28a545697ab67
Here's how that same link looks 'behind the scenes' after appearing in a recipient's corporate Outlook email program:
The link above will still send them to the correct Registration page when the original recipient clicks it in their email, but if they then attempt to copy the link and send it to others, or post it in social media, they often have problems (the link itself is more than 140 characters, for example).
Fix: Ask your recipient to right-click and select 'Copy' or 'Copy Text', rather than 'Copy Link' before using in other applications. What you're aiming for is for the recipient to paste only the original letters of the Seatrobot link exactly as it appeared in the email - not the 'behind the scenes' link their email program created.
Problem #2: Some social media apps, like Facebook or Twitter, can crop portions of your links when you post them, depending on how you insert them into your posts. This can result in your links going to seatrobot.com rather than your event page.
Fix: use a service like bitly to turn your Seatrobot registration / ticket page links into short-links before posting on social media.