clearcourseconnect

Does non-digital communication still have a role in modern member management?

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 14:40:25 GMT

Today’s trade unions and professional bodies are able to achieve levels of member service that would previously have been unimaginable without extensive support teams and huge operational budgets. A modern CRM combined with the latest association management systems (AMS) is able to automate so much of the daily workload that it’s easy to slip into a complete reliance on digital communication. But membership is by definition a people business and keeping a few traditional communication tools alive is still crucial if we want to maximise engagement.

Digital as default

Digital communication is instant and convenient. As soon as our AMS sends out an alert, update or confirmation, it’s received on the member’s computer or smartphone. They can then view it whenever and wherever they choose. For the organisation, there is another important benefit in that these digital interactions leave breadcrumbs of data that we can analyse to continuously improve and refine future strategy.

Members within certain demographics such as Gen-Z or high technology professions, are especially comfortable to receive information this way. But what about those that prefer a more human approach? Perhaps some members may have follow-up questions to ask or don’t even receive our emails due to an overly aggressive spam filter. Here a telephone call or physical letter could engage and ultimately support them far better.

Use analytics to segment

The world moved away from traditional communication primarily because of cost. It’s therefore important to not to waste resources calling or sending post to members that would prefer to get an email or SMS. To do this, we need to capture and analyse engagement data in an integrated CRM and use it to intelligently segment the communication preferences of our audience.

This data can take any number of forms and consolidating it is the key to establishing an effective strategy. For example, if we know that a member is a regular website user that systematically logs in to read alerts and update their personal profile, it’s safe to assume that communicating via the site will be effective. If our direct email platform tells us that they open everything we send and exhibit a high click-through rate to read more, then a direct email might work best.

If a member shows little or no interaction with these channels, no attempt to engage them this way is going to be effective. If however they respond to physical mail or log regular phone calls to the service desk, we can safely infer that a more personal approach is required.

Example: Membership renewal

One of the clearest applications of this strategy is at the point of membership renewal. If we have disengaged members, it is important to give them a better understanding of the benefits they may be missing. But by definition, they’re unlikely to respond unless we contact them personally. We also need to systematically remind all members about approaching renewal dates. For those that rarely respond to digital communication, only a phone call or letter is going to help. The same is true after membership has lapsed when we might wish to extend a special offer to re-join.

Balancing digital and traditional communication

In each of the cases above, investment in a traditional communication approach would have the greatest positive impact on revenue. Unfortunately, many membership organisations are now so invested in digital communication that they are simple not equipped to do it any other way. Finding the staffing and capacity to manage both is often not an option.

In these instances, one solution is to use an administrative support service such as ClearConnect. This UK-based team can help keep members engaged by answering queries, onboarding new members, making member check-in calls and conducting member surveys. They can also proactively contact members who’ve not yet renewed to encourage direct debits and answer renewal queries.

An average of 33% of lapsed members renew their membership following ClearConnect’s targeted renewal calling campaigns.

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Simplifying the challenge of member administration

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 10:04:32 GMT

When we speak to membership organisations, we find that most of their strategic emphasis is placed upon member growth. Achieving this requires a focus on a clear value proposition, marketing and member acquisition. However, it’s equally important to ensure that members receive excellent service throughout the membership year to increase retention and growth from referrals. Consistently delivering this level of service places budgets and team resources under pressure so it’s more important than ever to administer all aspects of membership efficiently.

There are three key milestones in most member journeys that provide a particular challenge to busy organisations:

1. Membership processing

When a potential new member completes a web form, sends an email or makes a phone call to enquire about membership, the reply they receive is perhaps the single most important interaction they will have with the organisation. It provides the first tangible impression of how it operates and whether it will keep its brand promise to value and respect the new member.

Replies of course need to be prompt, but they also need to be personal, expertly crafted and professionally delivered. For busy organisations, it can be challenging to prioritise these interactions alongside the pressures of day-to-day operation.

This is where partnering with a dedicated team can help. Using a partner service to field and administer these tasks is a great option providing they understand and properly convey the brand values of the organisation. They must also have the technical expertise to handle complex questions and to interact directly with the organisation’s CRM.

2. Enquiries and events

If efficient onboarding forms the foundation of a member’s relationship with an organisation, subsequent enquiries and events are crucial in reinforcing it. Each time a member submits a question, the organisation has the opportunity to solve their issue by responding promptly and professionally.

Events are a great example of this where the process of choosing, registering and paying can be made effortless with the right system architecture and support. It is worthwhile thinking of this in terms of the friction that exists within this user journey. Slow replies, payment processing issues and the need to re-enter information can make the member more likely to abandon an enquiry or cancel a purchase. Conversely, there’s an opportunity to stand out and really delight members by doing a great job. Having a well-resourced support team in place is essential.

3. Member Renewal

Many members base their renewal decision on the value they feel they received during the year. Other members simply forget that their renewal date is approaching. In either case, having a well-formed retention strategy delivered via timely reminders, personally delivered prompts and frictionless subscription support can be transformational.

Key elements to success include having a retention process that triggers before the member ends the year and being able to deliver these reminders in whichever manner the member responds to the best. If for example, your CRM tells you that their engagement rate with email is low, a personal phone call might be the approach that reminds them both of the renewal date and of the personal care your organisation takes. Again, this strategy can be a significant drain on resources and so using an administration service might be a decision that quickly pays for itself.

How does ClearConnect help?

Handling these scenarios in the manner detailed above is best practice for membership organisations. The reason that relatively few follow it is that these personal approaches require considerable resources to deliver in-house. And there are of course a thousand other urgent tasks that also need to be delivered concurrently.

One solution is to ask ClearConnect to help. Working as part of your extended team, ClearConnect can support your organisation with these challenges and provide a range of administrative services that includes:

Administering new member applications and answering any queries
Sending out welcome emails, letters and new member packs
Managing the registration process for events, webinars and professional development courses
Making personal phone calls to new joiners
Providing additional support services in member engagement, acquisition and administration

ClearConnect Launch Webcast: Catch up On Demand

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:18:30 GMT

Automate through outsourcing: addressing the administration challenge of acquiring, engaging and retaining members.

Did you miss our first ever ClearConnect launch webinar which was held in conjunction with the Memberwise Network You can catch up here

Membership organisations are continually looking for ways to optimise and innovate their operations, in order to more effectively engage with members. The challenge is often how you keep all of the plates spinning.

Re-watch on demand where our strategic director, Ed Owen outlined an alternative approach to tacking these challenges, through the strategical use of outsourced service providers.

Find out about ClearConnect and learn how likeminded organisations such as The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UNISON and CAMRA has implemented tactical strategies to streamline their workload and reach their organisations objectives.

Learning objectives:

1. Discover strategies to increase your responsiveness to member enquiries and proactiveness around engagement.

2. Learn practical initiatives used by likeminded membership organisations to manage fluctuating demand, respond to lapsing memberships and engage new joiners.

3. Find out about a new specialist service in the NFP membership sector, ClearConnect, which helps you to acquire, engage and retain your members.

Catch up on demand here

ClearConnect Launch Webcast: Automate through outsourcing

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 10:20:00 GMT

Automate through outsourcing: addressing the administration challenge of acquiring, engaging and retaining members

To celebrate the launch of the ClearConnect brand, in conjunction with the MemberWise network we're hosting a complimentary webcast. See the details below and book your place now

Date: Tuesday 18th October 2022

Time: 11am – 12pm

Membership organisations are continually looking for ways to optimise and innovate their operations, in order to more effectively engage with members. The challenge is often ‘how do you keep all of the plates spinning?’. This session aims to share an alternative approach to tackling these challenges, through the strategical use of outsourced service providers.

This webcast will introduce the ClearConnect service and provide insights on how some of the most respected membership organisations such as The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UNISON and CAMRA have implemented tactical strategies to streamline their workload and reach their organisations objectives.

By joining this webcast you will:

• Discover strategies to increase your responsiveness to member enquiries and proactiveness around engagement

• Learn practical initiatives used by likeminded membership organisations to manage fluctuating demand, respond to lapsing memberships and engage new joiners.

• Find out about a new specialist service in the NFP membership sector, ClearConnect, which helps you to acquire, engage and retain your members.

Introducing the New ClearConnect Brand

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 15:31:15 GMT

The Spectrum Services team has delivered exceptional membership administration services for some of the most prestigious membership organisations for over 20 years. To compliment our brilliant customer service and offering we’ve transformed ‘Spectrum’ and developed a new name, brand identity and proposition.

Introducing ClearConnect...

Based in Telford in the West Midlands, our ClearConnect team has 20+ years of knowledge within the membership sector. Over this period we have supported some of the best membership organisations with their administration tasks such as subscription facilitation, contact detail updates, membership processing and event registration.

The ClearConnect team has the skills and knowledge to c arry out these tasks within ClearCourse brands membership solutions. Platform based membership solutions such as Dynamics CRM - Trillium, Silverbear and Felinesoft and specialist solutions - Protech, Millertech and APT.

In addition to member administration, ClearConnect can support your strategic aims around acquisition, engagement or retention through our telemarketing cam paigns. On average we engage 100,000 members per year through these campaigns for our clients.

Don’t just take our word for it

We work with one of the most well-known organisations The Institution of Mechanical Engineers to drive their revenue through payment collection and upgrade telemarketing campaigns.

“I have worked with the ClearConnect team for a number of years on marketing call campaigns for the institution. The campaigns are always implemented efficiently, offer value for money and the team provide great customer service. I have every confidence that the team will work to deliver the campaigns efficiently and provide us with the analysis and results to help us understand our members better.” - Ravi Bhela, Membership Marketing Manager, IMechE.

Creating the ClearConnect Brand & Proposition

The ClearConnect name was developed to describe how ClearConnect can act as an extension to a membership organisations in-house team. Our new brand statement ‘Membership it’s what we do’ underpins one of our key messages, to emphasise our 20 years of expertise in the sector. The ClearConnect brand identity takes the same simple, clean and modern approach that the newly launched ClearCourse and ClearAccept websites provide.

Our Values

As part of the ClearCourse Group, our team and our brand are guided by our FAIR values, which keep us focused on how we approach things every day, from how we interact with our colleagues and customers to why and how we build our products and services.

Of course, a brand in itself means very little – it’s got to be backed up by the right people and the right products and services.

And, fortunately, we’re certain through ClearConnect we are offering just that!

The challenge of member acquisition

techops@clearcoursellp.com (Tech Ops) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 10:28:46 GMT

For any membership organisation, growth is synonymous with the process of acquiring new members. While keeping current members engaged is vital. And having a well-developed retention strategy ensures that they have every reason to renew at the end of their subscriptions. But in order to grow and achieve more as an organisation, you need to reach new people, persuade them to subscribe, and have them add to your community.

There are three ways that new members can be acquired, and each demands a concise strategy and dedicated resources:

Passive acquisition

The most basic type of member acquisition comes when a user independently learns about your organisation or visits your website. They do a little desk research, find a value proposition that resonates with them and make the choice to subscribe. Optimising this user journey requires you to present an extremely clear and concise reason for joining, and to complement this with a compelling list of benefits that the new member truly values. Crucially, you must then remove all friction from the sign-up process.

This transaction, as well as any questions that arise along the way, need to be handled expertly and immediately. It acts as a trial run for the service the potential member can expect to receive and provides a positive perception for the new member.

Acquisition via recommendation

The second way that members can be acquired is via word of mouth. This only happens if an organisation is doing a great job of keeping their membership engaged and continually providing benefits that make the subscription feel like excellent value for money. Again, this requires a proactive approach to member engagement and a support team that can reply to queries and solve issues as soon as they arise.

We also need to consider the old marketing adage that “a happy customer tells a friend; an unhappy customer tells the world”. The effect of this is that it is much easier to lose potential new members from a bad recommendation than to win them from a great one. So even more attention is required. While this is not always easy to resource, it is an essential component of any successful organisation and turning current members into advocates is transformational for your ability to grow.

Proactive membership campaigns

The final method of member acquisition combines membership and marketing skill sets to create targeted recruitment campaigns. Again, having a compelling value proposition is crucial and being able to reach people via their preferred method of contact is critical to success. As with the online signup process, this first contact with a potential new member can serve as a type of audition for your organisation. It needs to be personal enough to let the recipient know that you understand and appreciate them, and professional enough to convey the promise of great service, well-designed products and properly run events.

The competition for subscription is often fierce and so these recruitment campaigns require a sophisticated strategy, intelligent audience segmentation and flawless execution. Getting people interested in joining is one thing; supporting them with expert information and prompt updates so as not to lose them along this journey is just as important.

How does ClearConnect help?

ClearConnect works as part of your extended team to deliver on these member acquisition strategies and can support you in a number of ways including:

Providing telemarketing recruitment campaigns to drive membership
Administering new member applications and answering any queries
Sending out welcome emails, letters and new member packs
Making personal phone calls to new joiners
Providing additional support services in member engagement, acquisition and administration

What is member retention?

techops@clearcoursellp.com (Tech Ops) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 10:47:23 GMT

Member retention is often considered the most crucial tool for membership organisation success. By retaining members, you demonstrate the value that your organisation delivers and have a chance to create advocates from your membership group. You increase the opportunity for referrals and your reputation in the sector grows. Crucially, you also optimise operational costs because it is more cost effective to retain an existing member than to find a new one.

Passive acquisition

Member retention metrics

There are two essential metrics in member retention that can quantify some of these benefits. Member Lifetime Value (MLV) is the annual revenue gained from a membership multiplied by the duration of that membership in years. Monitoring this metric quickly shows that retaining members for even a year or two longer, has a substantial impact. The second metric is the retention figure itself which is usually expressed as a percentage. To calculate this, we simply divide the total members at the end of a period by the total at the start, and then multiply the result by 100. Anything over 90% is considered excellent and places the organisation in an outstanding position for future growth.

How to drive member retention?

A proactive member retention strategy should aim to influence members ahead of their renewal date and increase the likelihood of them resubscribing. This is done by targeting the touchpoints where the organisation and its members meet, and by attempting to understand what our members feel about the value they’re getting. The simple act of asking the question has a positive impact but we should also actively gather feedback to steer improvements.

To reach members we can take a variety of approaches, but all should incorporate both the marketing and the membership departments . All too often, this task is left to the latter.

The exact approach tends to differ based on the organisation, their overall offering and strategy. In general, contacting new members by email soon after they join to signpost the available benefits is the first step to engaging them. Then we can follow up with various interactions such as telephone calls, networking events and in-person meetings throughout the year. As their renewal date approaches, we can check in with them, talk through membership options and make it easier for them to renew.

More sophisticated approaches can be undertaken for larger organisations. By examining user behaviour on the website against individual engagement with events and learning programs, we can identify those most at risk of leaving. We can then select the approach that might be the most successful. For example, some members may respond well to emails, others to more personal contact. We can also categorise the important data that will allow us to monitor performance and continually refine the strategy.

How does ClearConnect help?

This continual improvement loop of measurement and refinement is always a crucial element of any strategy. But having the resources to do the important work of reaching members personally, helping them to understand the continued benefits of membership and handling their renewals is the first step.

At ClearConnect, we have 10 years of expertise in supporting the full member lifecycle and offer a suite of member retention services that include:

Conducting calling campaigns to help members renew
Managing follow-up emails and mail-outs
Handling the processing of membership payments
Delivering on your strategies to optimise retention levels and position your membership organisation for growth.
Providing additional support services in member engagement, acquisition and administration

What is member engagement?

techops@clearcoursellp.com (Tech Ops) — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 11:15:58 GMT

Engagement is one of the membership sector’s most commonly used terms. It appears in almost every organisation’s commercial plan and is often used as a synonym for “the business of membership”. But what does it actually mean?

Put simply, engagement is a measure of how much the member and the organisation interact with one another. It considers how each has invested in that relationship and how this might emerge in their everyday activities. However, to design strategies that manage and improve engagement, we need a far more measurable definition than this.

Just a few years ago, member engagement was a simple measure of member activity. It was focused on the total number of people that visited an organisation’s website, attended its events or opened one of its email bulletins. Today however, modern CRM and membership management systems provide far more detail. In addition to comprehensive dashboards and reports, many systems can also provide an engagement score which allows organisations to understand and analyse behaviours of the most engaged and disengaged members.

Why does engagement matter?

Strong member engagement is often a good indicator of the value a member receives from your services. This relationship between engagement and value is important as it creates a loop that can drive organisational growth.

Generally speaking, the more a member appreciates the products and services you offer, the more they will use them. And the more they use them, the better value their subscription will provide. This has three positive outcomes for the organisation.

Most obviously, highly engaged members will buy more products, services, training or event tickets and increase revenue for the organisation
Highly engaged members can also become advocates for your organisation by recommending that their friends and colleagues consider joining
The more value that members see from your services, the more likely they are to renew for another year

The second and third points above define the two pillars of membership: acquisition and retention . Understanding their relationship with member engagement can help you to measure member value, track performance and develop strategies to drive all the metrics that matter to members.

How does ClearConnect help drive engagement?

In 2021, the MemberWise Digital Excellence report listed engagement as the top goal for membership organisations. However, many of these organisations don’t have the resources or capacity to deliver on their member engagement strategies. That’s where our team can help.

At ClearConnect, we have 10 years of expertise in supporting the full member lifecycle. We offer a full suite of member engagement services to help keep your members engaged throughout the year. These include:

Helping to onboard new members with starter packs, emails and welcome calls
Managing member check-ins and surveys
Contacting members to obtain personal feedback on user experience
Supporting events and new initiative launches to drive growth
Providing additional support services in member acquisition, retention and administration