Over my many years in building and managing membership programs within non-profit associations a certain mantra rang true for the many stakeholders I worked with from staff members to volunteers and board members. I call it my membership maxim and use it constantly to guide membership retention efforts. The maxim is:

“The positive is expected and the negative is remembered.”

Your members expect a certain level of value from their membership experience. Although the value proposition may be determined by you and your organization, your members’ expectations are set by the marketplace. Your members expect to get a positive membership experience and if they encounter something negative related to the membership it is implanted in their long-term memory for the membership’s lifetime (which is determined by the member.)

Just Keep Swimming

Members and customers of a professional individual membership organization or trade association – or even any for-profit business for that matter – have high expectations for the experience and value they receive from the business they are joining. Your membership programs are up against some significant competition in the marketplace. You must compete with the likes of Chick Fil A for customer service, Amazon for efficiency and delivery, and Facebook for engagement. The bar is set very high and with your limited resources it’s unlikely your organization will even come close to reaching it.

Remain calm. Your constituency is usually kind and provides you with leniency and gives you the benefit of the doubt. They can’t and don’t expect you to have everything the for-profit corporate mammoths offer. However, when the waves of new technologies crash against the shores of the internet your members expect you to at least keep paddling with those waves. From easier log-in processes to adding if-you-like-this-you’ll-like-that features in your estore to providing an app, and on and on. Your members will only give you a certain amount of time to implement these new features, functions, benefits, and services before the waves begin crashing over you and the riptide becomes too strong for you to swim against. The complaints begin, the retention rate diminishes, attendance at your events dwindles, and the thoughts of mergers and acquisitions begin entering the discussions at board meetings.

The Unimpressed

So, let’s say you’ve got the hang of it and your organization is surfing the technological waves pretty well. A majority of your members and customers will recognize this and say “I’m satisfied.” Good enough. They paid their dues (likely increasing every year) and they are not too impressed. Even if you wow them and deliver bonuses and exceed their expectations, the reaction is likely to be a smile and a polite “thanks.” No big deal. They won’t likely be taking the initiative on their own to post long raving testimonials or social media posts and 5-star reviews or picking up the phone to sing your praises to their network. That’s ok. Happy members make for a stable, sustainable organization with a good retention rate. Good for you.

The Inevitable

A membership experience that is positive in the perception of the member is expected and likely the case for most members. However, as time goes on, it is inevitable that something negative will be encountered by that member. What then?

The Dirty Truth

At one of the organizations where I was employed, there were two posters hanging in the hallways of the office that made me smile each time I walked past them. I’m not sure I have the exact wording but, they read something like…

“We put our members on top and they come first.”

and

“It’s everyone’s responsibility to service our members.”

Yes, they made me smile mostly because of the obvious sexual innuendo, but – as a membership professional – I also said to myself, “easy for you to say”.

It’s easy for an organization to focus on putting the member first and saying “the member is always right.” Then when some serious and significant issue emerges for a member, you take it on with fervor and go the distance to resolve it and make that member happy again. Member satisfied. Time to “ease on down, ease on down the road.” Right?

Well, when they get to that fork in the road and are asked to extend their membership journey the memory of that negative experience will no doubt enter their minds. Hopefully, it is accompanied by a memory of how it was positively resolved.

Does the value you delivered throughout the membership experience help erase the memory of that negative incident or is that memory forever etched into their brain?

A Haunting Reality

Studies (and experience) show that when a member or customer contacts the business and complains about something related to their experience, it’s likely they will come back again, renew, and even become a loyal advocate for your business. Of course, this is true only if they feel their issue was resolved satisfactorily when it happened or when they ended up bringing the matter to the business’ attention.

If the issue was not resolved to their satisfaction or the organization failed to follow up and follow through on the issue, it becomes a horror story. Likely entitled, I Know What You Did Last Summer (or whenever it happened.) It will come back to haunt you and your bottom line.

So keep paddling out to catch those persistent waves of technology and surf them before they crash against the shore. It will keep you and your membership program moving forward rather than just treading water.