HAE Best Practice - Jargon or Practical Solutions?

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Best Practice

John Hall & Stuart Wilkinson

12th February 2013

www.hallassociates.com


What is “Best Practice”

Jargon or a practical solution to the membership challenge?

Best practice is an overused term often describing a theoretical approach. In most instances, it’s received wisdom or the politically correct thing to do.But it doesn’t often meet the membership challenges we face today.Generally speaking, it’s unfit for purpose in practical membership terms.

However, times are hard and we all need to be following best practice in the literal sense.With some notable exceptions, the membership world tends to live in the past, is always slow to react, and never quite catches up.Put another way, the sector is usually driven by events, rather than being in control, and often gets caught out.

However, we know from experience what works and what doesn’t in reality.And, properly applied, that experience should also enable us to plan accurately and be far more nimble in how we respond as the challenge evolves.

Best Practice… Jargon or a practical solution


What Should It Be?

Best practice is a prescribed way of doing things.

It’s common to everyone, and assumes that one size fits all…We can’t just try to fit a member into a concept of how it should be done.We have to fit the way we do things into the member’s portrait, reflecting how they behave, and what they will respond to best – the onus is on us.We need ways of doing things that are adaptable and more efficient in any given set of circumstances.Most membership bodies tend to follow legacy practices, often rule book based.They are beaurocratic and focus upon procedure, not what’s best for members.

Best practice should be “doing what your members want you to do, and doing it in a member friendly way”It must be a dynamic paradigm, so that we are always on the front footOur definition of best practice is simply - the best way to do what we need to do right now, and we know it’s best because we have the evidence.



What Do Our Members Think Is Best?

Keeping in touch with member’s thoughts and feelings seems a pretty good idea!

Best practice says carry out a survey every now and then (it probably says annually), but few membership bodies actually achieve that.As a result of this periodic survey process we will know what those who bother to respond thought, and only at a particular point in time.We will therefore base our practice upon limited input and a snapshot in time.That can’t be best practice – more like a self fulfilling prophecy.

We need feedback on member thinking as it evolves, and what it might be at as many stages as possible in the mutual membership journey.We need to talk to members and engage with them on a consistent basis.If we listen, internal best practice will then reflect majority opinion and guide us towards ways of working that produce the best result for everyone.Best practice here must be that processes and relationships match member expectations, and members know that we ask, listen and act upon the answers.



The Classics

How does accepted best practice perform in relation to the fundamentals?

We all know and love the membership classics – the 3 Rs (listed here with a few of our thoughts on alternative descriptions):

Recruitment; or making joining so attractive you can’t say no!Renewal; or processing a payment which our member want to give us!Retention; or maybe just keeping members really, really, happy!

Let’s have a brief look at what accepted best practice says in each case.Some of the practices will of course be sound, at least in principle, but we can’t remain loyal to them just because we’ve known them for so long.

We need to examine our current experience and take a realistic view of:What works, and why What doesn’t work, and why

Equally important is to consider what might be suspect – what might still be OK for today, but unlikely to meet future needs.



Recruitment

We all know that recruitment nowadays is a very different matter compared to the past, when much of accepted best practice was in tune with nature.

Best practice says, spread the traditional message, it’s always worked before:Look at the size of our benefits!Joining is a jolly good thing to do

And use a scattergun to do it - then it was post, now it’s social media.It still works to a degree, but recruits often don’t stay beyond the first year.It’s a membership of individuals and we need to personalise what we do. A prerequisite is engaging with, and knowing enough about, our members.If so, we can channel specific benefits to align with specific member segments.We can sell solutions to specific issues, not just goodwill and a catalogue.It’s not that radical - find out what individual members are interested in, tell them you have it, and show them where they can find it.And in this context of course, social media is a facilitator not a solution.



Renewal

Renewal is seen as an annual battle by many – it’s January, so off to the trenches for another 3 months or so – and accepted best practice encourages that mind set.

Send a renewal letter with a long list of benefits and reasons why you should renew.Wait a month for them not to renew and send a reminder.Wait for nothing to happen for another month, and send another reminder.Hang on for yet another month, and then send the final reminder.Now we can lapse them, not too many casualties on our side – Job Done!

Where do we start with the critique? If you have to tell members why they should be renewing at that late stage, it’s a probably a lost cause anyway.One size does not fit all, and renewal must be customised to different member profiles, and personalised to them, to succeed.It’s not a battle, it shouldn’t even be a big decision point for the member.It should be nothing more than another step on the membership journey



Retention

Historically, “retention” is simply a means of measuring how many members renewed.

Best practice says that retention is about the quality and quantity of benefits, reminding members of them at renewal and a nice letter from the President.Reality says it’s about how we look after our members - all day every day.The perennial statement applies, if we are engaging with them, they will stay.In retention terms, best practice will in fact be what each member perceives as best for them.However, we often overlook the fact that retention isn’t a function – it’s an outcome of how everyone our organisation treats members.Unfortunately, many are still silo based, with various departments handling bits of the membership output.Members sees many different faces of the organisation at different times and at different stages in the membership journey.Strong retention demands a committed“one face to the member” culture.



One Face To the Member

True best practice will ensure that the member sees a consistent face irrespective of whom within the organisation they are interacting with.It will set and monitor clear Service Level Agreements between each function, and even clearer output SLAs wherever we touch the member.

Make it a perfect fit with the member’s expectations.



Practice What You Preach

Best practice will correctly say; ask what members want - but generally with closed questions, an example might be “how should we contact you”?

We can easily ask another way:

Best practice is not one dimensional, and should be flexed to best effect. Example two suggests that most are at least open to a variety of methodsAlthough 80% still say that they prefer email (easy to skim over or ignore), only 39% actually say that telephone contact is unacceptable to them.

What are the most effective ways for us to communicate with you?

Definitely ok Acceptable Possibly Novia Email 84% 11% 0% 6%via Text Message 4% 11% 18% 74%through Social Media 4% 12% 10% 80%by Phone (mobile) 9% 43% 15% 39%by Phone (landline) 7% 45% 15% 39%by Post 32% 39% 8% 24%

What is your preferred method?

via Email 80%via Text Message 2%through Social Media 0by Phone (mobile) 2%by Phone (landline) 0by Post 0



So what Constitutes Best Practice?

…and what is the formula? Best practice should in fact be self defining, because doing the best things at the best time will be the natural outflow from a closer member relationship.Best practice stems from focus on each individual step of the membership journey, and a joint route map to guide us and our members along the way:



“Computer Says No!”

Despite the emphasis on member software, CRM systems etc, one of the most regular and common themes we come across when talking to membership bodies is:

We can’t do that – Computer says no!

These are often very expensive systems too.This is not a criticism of membership systems, or their capabilities to engender best practice – quite the reverse in fact.It is a fly on the wall observation of the self imposed limitations which we frequently encounter.It is an illustration of the distinction between having the mechanisms for achieving best practice available to you, and actually doing so.

In our experience, practical solutions are usually to hand.Most of what we need is somewhere around if we take a lateral viewThe majority of membership bodies can do much more with what they have


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HAE Best Practice - Jargon or Practical Solutions?