In today's competitive landscape, member engagement and satisfaction is crucial for museums, cultural organizations, associations, and other member-serving institutions. Creating a positive member experience not only ensures sustainable revenue and institutional longevity but also fosters loyalty, creating advocates for your mission.
To cultivate an engaged and enthusiastic membership base, it's essential to offer a top-notch membership experience that caters to constituents and prioritizes engagement. However, even in the digital age, membership teams still spend far too many hours of the day on emails and phone calls - particularly to carry out laborious tasks like managing changes to members’ personal information, payment information, and more. These membership challenges often lead to inefficiencies and a diminished member experience. As membership programs expand to offer onsite and online perks, centralizing access to these benefits becomes increasingly important.
As part of our mission to help organizations address these challenges and create a unified member experience, Cuseum e our innovative Member Portal solution.
Read on to learn how this comprehensive and user-friendly portal saves time and money, offers easy and secure access, increases satisfaction, provides convenience, and bring all the benefits of customer self-service to the world of membership!
Membership Customer Service, the Traditional Way
In museums, cultural institutions, associations, and other membership organizations, updating personal information has traditionally been a cumbersome process for both members and staff.
In today's digital era, membership teams are investing an excessive amount of time in emails and phone calls, especially when handling mundane tasks like managing updates to members' personal information, payment details, and more. Simple changes to a member's name, email address, mailing address, or payment information necessitate contacting the organization, after which a staff member must manually update the database. From the perspective of member satisfaction, the additional effort required to relay changes to the institution can be notably inconvenient for constituents. Many members may experience frustration when forced to find the time to call or email, wait on hold, and explain their updates over the phone.
It is evident that poor customer service experiences negatively affect member satisfaction. In the commercial sector, half of customers will leave after just one bad customer experience, and 80% will leave after multiple bad experiences. For visitor-facing organizations, customer service issues are the primary factors contributing to visitor dissatisfaction.*
What if the entire process of updating constituent information could be streamlined for both you and your members?
With Member Portal, this becomes a reality. This self-service solution empowers your members to edit their own information, with data updates sent directly back to your database.
Why Opt for Self Service?
To begin with, self-service is rapidly gaining popularity as the standard and favored method for consumers to update their information and address their basic customer service requirements. According to 2022 data from HubSpot, 84% of consumers say they have used self-service portals. Plus, the pandemic accelerated the desire for self-service, with 95% of companies reporting a major increase in self-service requests in 2021, indicating rapid growth in consumer demand for greater speed and convenience.
It saves money: Self-service not only enhances member satisfaction but also significantly reduces organizational expenses. Research indicates that digital self-service can cut costs by 75%. Data from consulting firm Accenture shows self-service portals can save companies and organizations millions of dollars. By empowering your members, self-service allows your team to devote precious resources to more important tasks.
It saves time: It not only saves time for you, it also saves your members time, a critical feature as nearly three quarters of consumers say valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good online service.
It deepens member insights: Even in our online age, many membership organizations lack the tools and data to effectively enrich and analyze their member data. For example, alumni associations only have deliverable email addresses for less than half their base! Offering an easy way for constituents to update their contact information and member profile is critically important. Plus, with Cuseum’s easy integration with hundreds of Customer Relationship Management services, member operations are more streamlined than ever.
It’s what members want: Not only do 67% of customers favor self-service over speaking to a company representative, as of 2023 a staggering 88% of US consumers expect businesses to provide an online self-service support portal.
Already, many membership organizations are opting for this technology. In member-based associations, the invitation to create a membership profile ranks as the second most common method of member onboarding and engagement. Plus, 78% of leaders said they are investing more in self-service, allowing their constituents to help themselves with self-help portals.
With these trends in mind, implementing a self-service option for members in 2023 and beyond has never been more urgent.
Bring Self-Service to Membership with Member Portal
Cuseum’s Member Portal allows organizations to offer their constituents a truly unified membership experience. In one place, members can update their personal details, review their membership level and benefits, access exclusive digital content, and redeem special gifts. In the same portal, members can download their membership cards and tickets, as well as share complimentary guest passes with their friends, family, and coworkers.
Here are just a few benefits the member portal powered by Cuseum provides:
Effortless entry: Say goodbye to multiple usernames and passwords – our secure magic links provide the easiest login experience ever.
Heightened convenience: Present members with exclusive content, unique digital benefits, and more – all in one centralized location.
Save resources: Minimize the time and labor involved in manually updating member data, such as address changes.
Obtain insights: Identify your most digitally engaged members and determine who requires focused stewardship.
Enhance your data: Empower members to update their own information and swiftly complete any missing details through a self-service platform.
Provide special rewards and digital collectibles: Make your constituents feel even more appreciated with exclusive gifts, digital collectibles, and limited-edition content.
Leverage innovative digital value: The growing importance of digital membership benefits and exclusive content makes a Member Portal an essential tool. In a recent survey involving over 100 membership leaders at cultural institutions, nearly ⅔ (62%) reported they were already offering or planning to offer online membership benefits, while 44% identified such content as their top priority for advancing their membership program digitally.
As you strive to serve your members, think about the potential of expanding your membership benefits through a Member Portal:
✅ VIP membership portal access
✅ Limited edition digital collectibles
✅ Digital membership cards for iOS & Android
✅ Additional complimentary guest passes
✅ Seamless access to exclusive virtual content
In the future, online membership benefits are likely to become essential for numerous organizations. Bearing this in mind, a Member Portal can provide a seamless and intuitive member experience, complete with smoothly integrated digital advantages.
Are you ready to get started? Click below to set up a free demo with a member of our Team!