6 Tips for a Better FEC Liability Waiver Experience

Give your waiver and check-in processes a boost with the new Advantage waiver system.

As you’re setting the stage for a successful 2021, you’re no doubt reviewing all of your processes. Two that can make or break your guests’ perception of your facility are your liability waiver and check-in processes.

This past year, CenterEdge released a new waiver experience available for free to all users with an active license and service agreement (LSA), and if you haven’t done so already, now is a great time to schedule your upgrade. Also, check out these six tips to help you refresh your waiver, improve your guest experience, and reap all the benefits.

No. 1: Allow guests to complete waivers online.

With social distancing and capacity management measures in place, allowing guests to interact with your facility before they arrive onsite is more important than ever. Your waiver should be easily accessible from your homepage, when guests purchase tickets, in your birthday party invitations, and anywhere else on your website where guests make decisions.

The new waiver system delivers a consistent look and feel between your online and onsite waiver. This streamlines the experience and reduces friction-causing confusion, and also makes it easier for staff to aid guests, as they only have to remember the details of one waiver experience to help walk someone through.

No. 2: Reduce friction for guest arrival.

It’s always good to step back and assess your facility from a guest’s perspective to identify friction points. Are guests often confused about where to go if they’ve pre-purchased a ticket and completed a liability waiver online? Are onsite liability waiver kiosks clearly marked so guests see where a first-timer needs to go first? Those little traffic flow issues can create big gaps in your guest experience.

No. 3:  Improve onsite waiver completion.

The new CenterEdge waiver interface allows guests to complete waivers faster. With an optional driver’s license scanner, guests can opt to simply scan a drivers’ license to automatically populate most of the customer information, allowing them to finish the waiver with minimal data entry.

No. 4: Increase check-in speed.

The new waiver process eliminates the waiver queue. This means that completed waivers are immediately available at the point of sale for tickets purchased with staff. Your team can quickly verify waivers and check in guests at the time of purchase.  Staff use a new, simplified search function to search all or part of a guest’s name, and then can automatically verify and assign it to the ticket being purchased, greatly reducing the time it takes to check guests in.

For tickets purchased at a self-service kiosk, waivers can be accessed using facial recognition or a simple text message to a cell phone to validate the person making the purchase has a valid waiver. The guest can pay right there at the kiosk, or can take a receipt and complete the transaction with a team member and receive any media such as tickets or wristbands, as well as any other items that are part of the purchase (such as socks for a jump ticket). And, in our latest Advantage Waivers update, team members will see guest photos when adding or merging customers and can select the correct image for the final record. Pictures taken at the self-service kiosk for waiver verification will be available to choose from.

While you might not be offering birthday parties and events quite yet, be sure to consider how birthday guests check in. If it’s stressful, consider ways that you could streamline it. For example, are you providing party parents with links to liability waivers inside their electronic invitations that they can send to party guests ahead of time? You’ll be able to use your RSVP list to confirm waivers against the guest list at check-in easily with a mobile POS station, saving critical minutes and boosting experience right from the start.

No. 5: Update liability waiver text where necessary.

More than just copying liability waiver text from an internet source, it’s important to carefully compose the right language for your waiver. According to Rand Wright, President of SafePark USA, if you haven’t had the language reviewed by your legal counsel, or within the last year, it’s a good idea to have it reviewed now, especially as we move into 2021, and as privacy laws continue to evolve.

Many facilities have asked whether they should include COVID-19 language in their liabilities waivers. According to Rand, “if you’re going to add language around illness, make it general so that it won’t be limited to just COVID-19 as things change over time. But again, review this with your local legal counsel for the right approach in your state.”

No. 6: Review liability waiver expiration practices.

In your business, consider the right expiration periods for liability waivers. For instance, would you prefer that waivers for adults never expire, expire annually, or some other period of time?  As always, be sure that you check for changes in the local legal requirements for your state or municipality.

In addition to that, check to see what kind of liability waiver expiration notification process you have in place. If a liability waiver is set to expire, are you sending guests an email inviting them to update it and come back for a return visit with a special offer? This can not only speed check-in at their next visit but can also give past guests the boost they need to return to your facility.

There are many benefits of having a top-notch waiver system and process. The new waiver experience is available to all CenterEdge clients with an active Licensing and Service Agreement (LSA). Also, if you haven’t upgraded to the latest CenterEdge LTS version and the new Advantage Web platform, a CenterEdge Client Advocate will assist when you begin your upgrade.

Contact support@centeredgesoftware.com or call 336.598.5934, Option 2 to schedule, or for more information.