Growth and Retention Strategy

"Hall Associates were engaged to help us improve our membership retention especially amongst our non-professional grades of members who are, naturally, less committed to their membership. We found Hall Associates provided us with motivation and encouragement and extra hands to tackle those tasks that all membership organisations know they need to undertake (but invariably put off often due to time pressures) including direct member contact, review of communications, tighter management processes and greater analysis and understanding of members. All Hall Associate team members are very easy to work with and it makes a great deal of sense to get a fresh perspective from experienced practitioners."

Lorraine Darke - Membership Services Director

The Institute

Certified professional membership organisation
3000 members in 75 plus countries
Membership drawn from all business sectors including Finance, Government, Health, Retail, and Technology
Concentrating on recruitment and increasing their global presence
Launching initiatives aimed at broadening the scope of products and services

The Analysis

Renewal processes relatively well defined, but with opportunity to refine
Insufficient prioritisation or segmentation of the membership population
Room for improvement in the quality of member communication
Low level of member benefit take-up
Low retention of Affiliate members post first year of membership
Lacking detailed management information, reports and targets
Deficiencies in third party performance management processes

Quick win programme

Introduction of membership segmentation as the basis for prioritised member contact
Design and installation of a suite of membership metrics
Implementation of membership entry poll/welcome calls and scripts
Immediate gains in renewal performance

Detailed plan for Growth and Retention Strategy

Introduction of a more formal and prioritised approach to membership growth and retention
Design and implementation of new processes and practices supported by a membership segmentation model
Revised and improved member communication
Introduction of proactive member contact, by telephone and email
Installation of performance measures, targets and reports
Renewal and retention improvement
Long term strategic plans for durable membership growth

The Project

It became apparent that recent increases in intake of new members disguised the fact that better performance could be achieved if retention performance was improved in parallel.

The team at BCI needed to refine and complement their existing renewal to lapse activities and adopt best practice in pro-activity, segmentation and prioritisation techniques. It was also evident that the BCI needed to review member services and benefits and look at ways of improving member engagement in to ensure increased loyalty and retention.

Through research into potential target member populations, a number of member recruitment channels were identified (professional associations, recruitment agencies etc.) that were yet to be exploited.

This initial phase of the programme consisted of 2 elements:

A detailed review of membership related processes and routines in order to identify opportunity for improvement
A member contact exercise via telephone and email targeting both 'Unpaid' and 'Lapsed' members to stimulate renewal, generate cash and gain intelligence on the behaviour and attitudes of members

The member contact exercise resulted in positive responses from 40% of 'Unpaid' members and more than 15% from 'Lapsed Members'. Equally important, the intelligence gained on member attitudes and behaviour provided the essential detail to inform future product development, retention and membership growth strategies.

The BCI 'Membership Renewal, Retention and Growth' programme is ongoing. Renewal and retention performance continues to improve and membership growth trends are very positive.

Hall Associates