Effortless Member Registration
When you’ve done a great job of promoting your association to your target market through your social media platforms and website content, you’re going to garner a lot of attention from prospective members. The only thing that remains as a potential stumbling block is the registration process.
It’s a huge disappointment to successfully motivate a prospect deep into the process of becoming a full-fledged member, only for them to be discouraged and disenchanted by a convoluted and frustrating registration platform. Plainly put, that scenario is just unacceptable.
What you need is a system that will welcome new members into the fold effortlessly. Prospects shouldn’t have to toil and struggle just to member-up. In fact, the reality is that they won’t put up with much adversity when it comes to the registration process – and why should they? In this day and age, there’s no excuse to harbour a clunky online experience. Conducting registrations online is nothing new. There are plenty of smooth processes out there and yours should be no exception.
Detailed below are some of the most important elements to consider when evaluating this component of your association management system. The registration process shouldn’t be painful for prospects or administrators. As long as the following are comprehensively addressed, everyone should be happy.
- Finding the Right Place
- Once a prospective member has been wooed and has affirmatively decided to join your community, the path to registration needs to smack them in the face. They shouldn’t have to turn their head back and forth across the screen or scroll into oblivion. The link to registration should be at-hand, for them to identify easily and without much (if any) scouring. When a prospect makes the decision to become a member, you want to keep that affirmative mindset going and having them search high and low for access to the registration process will only serve to diminish their excitement. Empowering prospects to self-navigate with ease will allow them to sustain their forward momentum – bringing them one step closer to inclusion within your community.
- Expediting the Process
- Your registration process should allow you to gather all of the information you need (want) and be designed in such a way that it does not become lengthy or monotonous for new applicants to complete. It’s certainly a fine line to walk but with the support of a knowledgeable AMS provider, it can be handily accomplished. Again, the prevailing idea should be to get applicants through the registration process quickly, so their resolve to join does not wane. The sooner they can get involved in your community and exploit the value you have to offer, the better.
- Familiar Payment Process
- Every prospective member that applies to your association will be very familiar with making online payments. Not only has it become second nature to us all, the process of making a payment has been refined over time and is now all but a science. However, every once and a while, whether it’s checking out of your shopping cart or subscribing to a service, you will encounter overly complicated or dysfunctional online payment processes. It’s becoming more and more rare – but it does happen. It goes without saying, you don’t want to subject your association applicants to this kind of annoyance. When it comes to requesting payment, you don’t want to stray from the beaten path. Stick to the accepted approach for guiding people through making payments. It shouldn’t be unique or unfamiliar – it should be exactly what they expect.
- Payment Options
- No one knows what methods of payment your members prefer to use more than you do. On top of that, only you know what types of payments your association is setup to accept. So, you should have full authority to configure the registration process so it offers the exact payment methods you wish to allow. Plain and simple, you should decide what is best for you and your members. You definitely shouldn’t be limited to a specific set of payment types. The solution you choose should support your preference – no questions asked.
- Track Status
- As an applicant works their way through the registration process, your association administrators should be empowered to track their progress. It’s a huge disadvantage to be left in the dark when it comes to registration progress. Reason being, if you aren’t able to see the gates your applicants are successfully surpassing, there’s no opportunity to improve the process over time. Maybe it’s the case that more often than not, applicants are not following through with the registration once they get to a certain point in the process. This could indicate a technical issue or something that’s causing confusion or misunderstanding. When administrators can track registration progress, this type of situation can be picked up on, evaluated and rectified (if need be). However, if your administrators are not equipped with the capability to track registration progress, your association will never know of the potential issues that are turning people away. Give your administrators the eyes to see how things are progressing with registrations.
- Prompt Processing
- Once an applicant has made their payment, they shouldn’t be left waiting for an extended period of time. Your system should process payments quickly, so as not to leave the applicant hanging. Fact is, no one enjoys paying fees. However, the sooner they can extract the value for which they invested, the sooner they can forget about paying their dues. Lengthy processing times are like association purgatory – a place you do not want impressionable new members residing. With a system that expedites processing, applicants can move forward into their membership – reaping all of the rewards your association has to offer.
- Initiate Involvement
- Finally, the most important part of the registration process – your system must enable and inspire newly minted members to get involved in the community immediately. New members should be made to feel that the ecosystem they’ve just bought into is a living and thriving one, where there is plenty of interaction and a treasure trove of resources to exhaust. The very last thing you want is for a new member to complete their registration, only to find an empty echo chamber where their arrival goes unnoticed. It should be clear to new members that their joining the community means something significant to the association. The best way to accomplish this is to have a system that automates welcoming, by offering up valuable resources to the new member the moment they are anointed into the community, and inviting them into conversations where they can easily acquaint themselves with fellow association members.
Your association management system plays a significant role, right from the moment a prospective member decides to apply to your community. The functionality, polish and efficiency of your system’s registration process gives the applicant their first impression of how your association values its membership. Ensure this experience is a positive one so you can start your new members off on the right foot.
To better understand how Guild can support your association in meaningfully welcoming new members into your community, please click here.
