Re-Imagine the Experience of Membership
Updated: Apr. 16, 2018 | Categories: Member Communications, Membership
Chapter membership is essential for growth. Without attendance at meetings, visitors to the website, or volunteers for planning and executing the strategy, a chapter may simply disseminate, with its value to members lost amidst an array of negative feelings.
While the value of benefits is an important component to a chapter’s success, of greater significance is the member experience. Good or bad, this drives the decisions members make regarding beginning or continuing membership. Member experiences can be broken down into two key aspects: Expectations and feeling.
Expectations and Feelings go Hand-in-hand.
People join associations for all sorts of reasons: learn new skills, obtain certification, network with others in their field, and many more. Each person searches for value in the membership, no matter the actual financial cost. With this they build expectations and whether expectations are being met or not, then members’ feelings kick in. These feelings ultimately carry the greatest weight when it comes to how member experiences play out.
To determine how your members are feeling, and what they want out of membership, you can always ask them in a survey built around their actual experiences as a member or prospect. But what happens when someone attends an event, has a bad experience, and simply never returns? They didn’t complete a survey. They didn’t provide feedback for you to know how to improve. Surveys are needed and essential, but should not be the only way to capture the expectations and feelings of members.
Instead, Step Outside the Box to Find Solutions.
Amanda Kaiser of Smooth the Path suggests that by taking a problem solving approach “you address the negative, you accelerate the positive, and then you are on your way to far better member experiences.” To do this, begin by walking a mile in the shoes of your members and prospects, finding empathy for the lives they lead and the feelings they may have with regard to participation in your chapter. After all, you all share the same profession, it would likely be easy to relate.
Doing this is simple: close your eyes and imagine the typical experience of a new prospective member at an event or the choices taken by a long-time member who wants to get involved. Visualize yourself stepping into the experience – drawing on your own past experiences to gage what a new member might face. How might certain incidents make you feel? What factors influence your decisions to join (or not join) the chapter? What expectations drive your participation? How might those expectations be met? Do you offer to volunteer, but are turned away?
Answering these questions allows you to build only on the positive outcomes and keep doing the job of your chapter better. It is a different way of listening to prospects and members alike, even when they don’t choose to share their actual thoughts. Positive feelings are more likely to convert prospects to members and members to volunteers down the road.
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