A better way to keep your member data up to date
Posted
Out-of-date member data is a major headache for unions. It means having to deal with:
- incorrect addresses, impacting the ability to ballot effectively
- inaccurate subs payments costing the union money, but also leading to disappointed members when they cannot receive the support they need because they’ve been paying the wrong rate
- incorrect workplace information, making organising more difficult
- not being able to contact members, leading to lower engagement – and ultimately, lower retention
How unions try to fix it
We’ve worked with many unions over the years and heard about this pain, as well as the difficulties they have trying to keep their member data up to date. We’ve seen them try a variety of approaches, including:
- paper forms through the post
- direct phone calls
- online forms that save the data to spreadsheets
- asking members to log in to a membership portal to update their info
Each of these methods comes with challenges. Calls and paper forms are expensive to make and send. They get low response rates. In the case of paper forms, they require a lot of manual and often error-prone processing.
Collecting information via spreadsheets often leads to enormous data protection risks, as well as problems with data entry. Files are passed from person to person, computer to computer. It’s a slow process that usually ends with a painful import or copy-paste/fix-the-mistakes process.
Finally, membership portals are rarely a smooth ride for members, requiring them to recall information like membership numbers and passwords. They probably won’t have these to hand, and if they do, the user experience in these portals is rarely smooth and simple. Few members overcome the hurdles and actually update their details.
It’s not a surprise that so many unions struggle with keeping member data updated.
There’s a better way
Join Together has created a solution for unions enabling members to update their own details that:
- needs no login, but is still completely secure
- is cheap and easy to get members to use
- is intuitive, taking members less than a minute to complete
- can recalculate subscription rates when members’ circumstances change
- updates member records in the CRM automatically, without the need for manual entry
Once a union has our ‘update your details’ service in place, they can send periodic or targetted emails and texts to members reminding them to keep their information updated (we recommend you do it about once a year).
Try it for yourself
We’ve put together a demo version so you can see the experience for yourself. Just enter your email and check your inbox to get started.
The Join Together ‘update your details’ system will make it easy for you to maintain up-to-date information on your members, leading to:
- more effective balloting and organising
- higher revenue from more accurate member subs
- better engagement with members
- improved member retention
- happier members
- better data protection and security
Like the sound of that? Then get in touch to set up a call to discuss how we can help.