Streamline the Signup Process

[Krautgamer]

Hey folks,

after a successful design of our join us page (brtd.net/join) I thought long about the onboarding process to join the outfit.

Just to give an overview of the process, this is what you have to do when you land on the Join Us Forum Page (http://www.brtd.net/join-us/):

1. Visit 6 different pages
2. Move to the email program to confirm the address
3. Fill out a total of 21 form inputs
4. Install Mumble
5. Move back to the forums to find the mumble credentials
6. Log into Mumble
7. Apply for the outfit ingame

From a radical marketing standpoint I think everything besides the points 7 and 8 should be optional and clearly communicated as such. You can inform players about the Mumble credentials and news in the MOTD in the game.

BUT... I know that this is not really in the interest of the officers. You want the new recruits to read the rules and you want emails, infos and stuff. But there is still a shitload of redundancy.

• The question for age and location is asked twice
• The link to the outfit rules is (albeit important) shown twice
• Character name, BattleRank and activity can be seen in the PS2 stats url
• The questions "Why do you want to join BRTD", "What other gaming organisations (if any) have you been in?" and "How did you hear about BRTD?" seem unnecessary. You can handle that more casually in mumble

So in my opinion the really needed information is:

• Forum Registration Details (name, mail, password, terms)
• PS2 Stats URL

But still, I think we should mark registering outside of the game as optional. I would handle it as such, that registration here and filling out the forms should be a requirement to rank up from recruit to member. For the real onboarding process (quickly joining the outfit) you shouldn't do more than install mumble, join the server and have an officer pull you in.

That for my opinion. Thoughts on that, please!

Greetz,
Kraut

 

[Thundestrucks]

For the real onboarding process (quickly joining the outfit) you shouldn't do more than install mumble, join the server and have an officer pull you in.

Actualy we have that option, you can join public platoon and get outfit invite then within 2 week fill recruit form.
What i'm missing on main page is this "landing page" hard to find, really hard or maybe am i blind.

 

[Juggernaut]

I will look into it at the weekend, haven't the time to review it much atm.
We have had a lot of member that have not read the rules in the past. We can streamline it a bit, but some of the senior officers specifically ask for some of the questions.

If you like to re-work it do so here, btw your page is still and in use.

[B][SIZE=6][COLOR=#ff8000][U]Registration[/U][/COLOR][/SIZE][/B]

To join our Better Red Than Dead community you need to:
[LIST]
[*]Be age 18+
[*]Have created an account on this website. [URL='http://brtd.net/login/']Sign up here[/URL]
[*]Have completed the registration form [URL='http://brtd.net/applicationform/click-here-to-apply.2/form']here[/URL]
[*]Have read our Outfit Rules [URL='http://www.brtd.net/our-rules/']here[/URL]
[*]Be able to connect to Mumble Voice Comms [URL='http://sourceforge.net/projects/mumble/files/latest/download']Click here to download [/URL]
[*]Spend a minimum of 2 hours in-game per week.
[/LIST]
[B][COLOR=#ff0000][U]Your in-game name, forum name and mumble name MUST all match![/U][/COLOR][/B]
If you require a forum/mumble name change, or have any other queries of any kind, please message a member of the site administrator by using this [URL='http://www.brtd.net/misc/contact'] contact link[/URL]

Regard's

[I]Juggernaut[/I]

 

[Zorkos]

The questions "Why do you want to join BRTD", "What other gaming organisations (if any) have you been in?" and "How did you hear about BRTD?" seem unnecessary. You can handle that more casually in mumble

The thing is if you remove those questions and do it in mumble, most people won't ask those questions when they do the registration of the new member and those that do it will probably fuck up from time to time.
So in my opinion it is easier just to have those 3 questions in the form.

Character name, BattleRank and activity can be seen in the PS2 stats url

The character name is still good to keep makes it easier for me to spot when an applicant name do not match.

 

[Juggernaut]

Also some of those questions Are useful to officers . as we aren't on mumble a lot of the when a new recruit joins...

Typed with one finger on a sheet of glass.

 

[Juggernaut]

Updated
Location has been dropped from sign up form for the site and age dropped from the application form. its a requirement when signing up on the sign up for the site to be over 18 "Require Date of Birth and Minimum Age: 18"

 

[Irathi]

I think there is a second side to this, perhaps members that are willing to put some "effort" into joining are better members than those who can't be bothered to make even a minimum effort.

Also I think the registration process has got a lot better since I joined. From the brtd.net/join it is a very straight forward process at least up until you fill the registration form (I just tried it).

The registration form does have some questions that might not be directly important like the ones you mentioned; "Why do you want to join BRTD", "What other gaming organisations (if any) have you been in?" and "How did you hear about BRTD?" - however I think that if someone can't be bothered to answer simple questions like that then they are probably not worth having in the outfit either.

It's kind of like writing a resume when applying for a job, everyone knows it is filled with crap, but if you don't bother making it look nice then you don't want the job enough.

 

[Krautgamer]

However I think that if someone can't be bothered to answer simple questions like that then they are probably not worth having in the outfit either.

I've heard this a lot in the last days. I've heard this a lot in my work when consulting companies as a marketing person. "If they want it, they will put in the effort." Yes, definitely. But they don't know it yet, if they want it.

We are living in the wonderful world of capitalism, where every entity on the market (in this case every outfit) is fighting for the best assets (in this case players, with best I would not say most capable, but most fun to play with). So we're in direct competition with GOON, ELME, C0RE and such.

So why should the player join us, where he has to jump out of the game? He can have the onboarding directly, not just with us.

So my proposal is as such:
I do not want to eliminate the fact, that new players have to put in some effort. I want to postpone it.
Let new players apply ingame for BRTD and consider the "just ingame" period as some sort of recruitment trial, to see if the player fits our playstyle and we fit to the player.

But the effort has to come in, when the Recruit wants to become a member. Thats the latest point, where he has to fill out all the paperwork.

Most importantly: Communicate it as such! dnaRIP removed a very aggressive text from the ingame outfit presentation yesterday, that all ingame applications will be declined.

 

[Irathi]

I just don't believe that accepting everyone and everything is a good idea. I've seen this happen to many outfits and guilds over the years. The numbers inflate, the quality goes down, in the end it crumbles.

A middleway like the one you suggest might be good, join in-game and then do the application on the forum within a week. If it isn't in by the end of a week and the player doesn't seem interested in joining us on mumble = warning, end of a second week = auto kick.

But if that process leads to too much administration or if the "quick-joiners" don't contribute it might not be worth it.

 

[Wolfman109]

If we start accepting everybody who can click "send application" in-game, then we'll steer onto a very dangerous path that can easily end up with "BRTD BEST ZERGFIT 2014; TACTICAL SHREKT!"
I think it's worth trying out and see if we can bring more of the non-outfit greenies of TR (there are roughly 14k out there at the moment, on Miller alone) into BRTD, but we also need to be very aggressive about getting people onto mumble and signed up on BRTD.Net, if we don't do so, I fear we'll become the new SCEV.

In short, we need to have a guideline set in stone; with how long we'll let greenies play with us "for fun" and without any commitment and when we start whipping them into shape.
It’s also going to be drain on the rest of the outfit in everyday play, as everybody at the moment is used to that those in the Reaper Platoon, is also on mumble and can be yelled at; in order to get a ress, repair, ammo, ride, covering fire, bloody well everything.
If we let new members into BRTD without getting on mumble, people need to be aware; our squad cohesion and team work will suffer as of such. And to be honest, we aren’t the outfit with the strongest team work on this server at the moment.

If we choose to start accepting in-game recruits, then we’ll potential open the flood gates to something, we might not be able to control.

 

[Juggernaut]

We done this open recruiting in the past, we ballooned to over 800 members, we got a very bad reputation that took years to clear. People are inherently lazy, we tried recently open recruiting about 6-7 months ago, out of 50 that we took in, we got 5 to sign up on the website and get on mumble and use it...

This took a few weeks to clean out the members that joined and used mumble only once ie basically useless to us. We ain't a commercial organisation where turnover of number matter, we have only finite resource we can invest in new recruits. We also a massive influx of new member around the launch of PS2 we had severe issues with ballooning and lack of control behind the scenes.

What we really need is recruit 15-20 new member a month. This will allows us to grow at moderate pace and train up new members.

To do this I suggest setting up a general recruitment strategies:

• Run public platoon/squad daily.
• Promote using BRTD.net/join ie yell chat and so on
• Forum whore a lot more and promote the outfit in general
• Have dedicated recruiters that have targets to meet.
• General tidy up of the recruitment system in general:
  • landing page
  • recruitment form
  • how we handle new recruits
  • so on

I do think kraut is right in general. but we do not want to mass recruit like we did in the past several times.

if you have any suggestions please speak up I'm listening . but lack time atm.

@Krautgamer the youtube video for the landing isn't working. http://www.brtd.net/join/

 

[Krautgamer]

@Juggernaut Should be fixed. (When CF updates the cache).

By the way, does XenForo have a rest api, with which we could theoretically create a form on the landing page for signup and the rest of the information together?

Answered my own questions: Yes, there is. https://github.com/Contex/XenAPI/wiki/REST-API-Actions#register

 

[Juggernaut]

Not built in, but plenty of third party apps can be installed such as this:

Xen API

https://github.com/Contex/XenAPI/wiki/REST-API-Actions#actions