Membership systems are traditionally very expensive and complex and due to these core factors many organisations have failed to keep these important records databases updated.

As technology has upgraded in part of our everyday life, clients of membership organisations now expect a certain level of functionality and reliability and unfortunately are often disappointed with out-dated systems. This leads to frustration from members and a quick fall in member retention. 

It makes sense, would you use an online store if it took your money but didn’t deliver a promised service? no. In some cases members have no choice, but where there is another organisation providing a similar service, it is happening, members are leaving for better service. So why doesn't everyone just keep their systems up to date? Sure, that would be ideal but......

We see many failed projects in the membership space and are often invited late to the project to investigate what went wrong and how to prevent this from happening again, the key reasons for project failure include:

• Lack of understanding as to how your organisation functions
• Estimation of cost to replace legacy systems is so high cannot even begin to start it
• Budget ran out, misled by suppliers to the cost of the total project
• Poor vendor selection, vendors who have a history of non-delivery but have a great sales team
• Stalled projects, where the project is still ongoing, has cost a fortune and you have nothing to show for it but future promises.

The membership space is being disrupted, with many new products coming to market in the last year, which is great news for organisations that are faced with some of the above issues. 

Membership systems are now more affordable than ever, completely cloud based as well as not need “upgrading” or license add-ons. Imagine an entire membership system with an eco-system of eLearning, Web content, Events and your staff being able to utilise and rely on the data that the membership system is acquiring. 

If your membership system does not do the following, you need a new one:

• Uses the latest in web technology
• Auditing of members info (who changed what when)
• Online registration
• Online payments
• Able to integrate to and from other systems easily (API)
• SSL (or https) based and web based
• Provide well crafted emails out to your members and track who received / opened them
• Build content pages within your membership system
• Provide a history of user security and role access over time
• Provide a history of courses and programs a user has completed over time.
• Allow members to update their address and payment information online.
• Allow members to subscribe and unsubscribe to groups / payments / mailing lists.
• Linked to eLearning and courses complete for staff and members

How much would it cost to fix? Less than you think! But you need to know the right people, people you can trust to deliver what they promise. Here at Mition we are those people. Get in contact today!