We Have Always Done It That Way

Here’s a thought..

Software companies create releases for a wide range of reasons. But one of those is to stay ahead of the competition. What if we started to think about membership benefits much like software upgrades? For example, the strategy would be to come up with membership benefit upgrade releases each quarter.

This would require three things. (1) A listing of each of the current member benefits, (2) An ongoing assessment of how each of these benefits are utilized (quantitative) and viewed (qualitative) by members, (3) Gathering of new benefits that members would like.

Now keep in mind that each quarter some of these upgrades may be “minor” and others may be “major”.

Here’s just one brainstorm on the possibilities.

Release 1.0 – the list of benefits your organization currently offers now and a clear communication campaign to gather data on these benefits and new ones that members want.

Release 1.1 – after a quarterly analysis – you drop a few of the non-performing benefits and add a couple of moderate benefits.

Release 1.2 – You drop a few more of the least performing benefits and add a couple of great new ones.

Release 1.3 – You continue to drop the least performing benefits and add a significant new benefit. (Now it’s time for a member to think about renewing.)

Release 1.4 – it’s been a year – you restate the benefits added to date, add another new benefit or two.

Release 2.0 – Create your new list of benefits for the year, communicate what’s coming in the next “release”, drop a few, add a few…

Very quickly your organization will really be in-tune with your membership. Old and unused programs and services will be dropped and new ones will take their place. Good programs that simply need a tune up are updated and scheduled for “release”.

The best part is that the decisions are business related, not personal or worst of all, “Because We’ve Always Done It That Way”.

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