Real Business Problems. Smarter Solutions.

The Court Was Booked. The Check-In Process Needed Work.

Last week, I went to play pickleball at a sports club with a group of friends. My friend had booked three courts for about 20 of us.

The facility offered swimming, tennis, and several other sports. With that many activities and people coming through, I expected a smooth check-in process.

At the front desk, a staff member asked whose booking I was joining. I gave my friend’s name, and he pointed me toward a clipboard to write down my name.

Then I was sent through to play.

My handwriting is messy. I scribbled something down just to get through the process. I assumed the sheet had something to do with a waiver, because I wasn’t asked to complete anything else—but I honestly couldn’t tell you what that clipboard was recording.

Was it attendance? Agreement to a waiver? A list of people joining the booking?

As a customer, I didn’t know.

“Has he been here before?”

That experience reminded me of another visit, this time to a play centre with my nephew.

I couldn’t load their online waiver because the internet wasn’t working. The staff member asked whether my nephew had visited before.

“Many, many times,” I replied.

I gave him my nephew’s name. He looked something up at the front desk, said he had found him, and let us through.

But I left wondering what he had actually found. A previous visit? A booking? A waiver completed by one of my nephew’s parents?

Perhaps everything was correctly recorded. From where I stood, the process didn’t make that clear.

Getting people through the door is only part of the job

Both experiences made me think about what happens when a business needs to look back at its records.

If someone gets hurt, can the business confidently establish who attended, which waiver applied, and who completed it? For a child, can it identify the parent or guardian associated with that record?

A scribbled name or a quick “Have you been here before?” leaves questions that staff may have to untangle later.

There’s also the everyday frustration.

Customers don’t want to fill in the same details on every visit. Staff don’t want to search through records while a queue builds. And nobody wants an internet problem to bring check-in to a standstill.

A better process should make returning easier

The answer doesn’t have to be a longer form.

A well-designed check-in process could recognise returning visitors, retrieve the relevant record, and ask them to confirm or update only what is needed. Staff should be able to see whether anything is missing and what needs attention before admitting someone.

For group bookings, each participant should be connected to the right booking. For children, the process should clearly connect attendance with the appropriate parent or guardian record.

There should also be a clear fallback when the internet fails, so staff know what to do without improvising.

That’s the kind of everyday business problem that drives my thinking about SigninLink.

The sports club had the courts ready. The play centre was ready for children to have fun. But the experience at the front desk left me with questions.

When a customer walks through your door, does your check-in process give your team a reliable record—or simply get the person past reception?

This week, I’m exploring ways to make this process easier for both customers and staff.

My idea is simple: enter my information once, then add participating facilities to my profile without filling in the same details again. When a facility requires a waiver, my first and last name would already be filled in. I could review that facility’s waiver and sign it, with the system recording when I signed. Then prompt a screen that I have signed in as confirmation that I have signed in.

Each visit would also have its own check-in date and time. Staff could quickly confirm who has arrived and whether the required waiver is complete.

For children, the process would connect their visit to the appropriate parent or guardian and waiver.

Less repetition for customers. Less searching for staff. Clearer records for the facility.