Hi all,
I just wanted to pose a question about membership price revisions. We are just about to implement a streamlined membership that will see all the variations of our basic £50 Friend level scrapped - there are currently many concessions available including a £45 over 65 rate and a £47 direct debit rate. We are also increasing the price of our next level up (best Friend) by £50 (a change which I am feeling is long overdue).
We are going live with this on our website at the end of the month, but we are just writing our renewal request letters to our November expiry members and so we want to prep them that these changes are about to come into force. My main question is to anyone who has also had price changes to their membership and what you said to people who were due to renew just as those changes kicked in. Did you offer them the option to renew at the previous old rate, or did you ask them to renew at the new going rate for their level?
I was going to implement these changes right away but just wanted to get a sense from my peers what has been done before. I also wondered about members on direct debit - my thinking is it is best to allow these members to carry on their existing direct debits rather than risk losing them altogether when they amend their direct debit instruction.
Any insight from your experiences would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Anna
Good afternoon Anna,
I formerly managed the Barre Society (young professionals membership group) at Tulsa Ballet and they actually just implemented a fairly significant restructuring of their membership levels over the summer between the end of the 2016/17 season and the beginning of 2017/18. At the time of those changes, some members had already renewed in the old structure for 2017/18.
I actually moved into my new position in the middle of the summer, so I can pass along that their decision-making process involved just deciding on a date that the new memberships would be in full effect and starting all new members within that new structure instead of mentioning the old structure.
Even members from the previous season were given some notice that membership structure was going to change if they wanted to keep the old structure of their membership for a final season, but once the date deadline came and went, they were locked into the new membership structure.
It's definitely a decision worth spending some time mulling over. I'd say the most important thing to consider is when you want to "cut the cord" on the old membership and fully embrace the new structure. There's always the fear of attrition from membership when there are fundamental changes to the structures, but it's worth asking yourself whether it's worth being over-accommodating for existing members for one last renewal knowing that you're essentially just delaying their confrontation of the structure change by 12 months.
Thank you,
Brian
Great answer Brian thank you - you are right in that it is probably just delaying the inevitable if we hang onto the old structure for too long. Got to just make a decision when to go live and press the 'go' button & stick with it!