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
I helped move my org through a similar membership restructure where we removed all "student/senior/teacher/artist" discounted Individual and Household levels, meaning these people now have to pay the same as everyone else for the same benefits (which is $25 more than what they paid before) or downgrade to a "Pay What You Can" level for fewer benefits.
My advice:
1) We decided to 'grandfather' current members into their old rate for their first renewal after the change, but included a lot of messaging about all the changes throughout the year (in emails and renewal packets). I think that might have been a little extreme (quite a bit of extra work at renewal times for that first year), but we didn't have a lot of time to message about the changes before they took affect, so it seemed like the right thing to do. I recommend considering some version of this.
1b) Take a look at who is at that level. Are they long-time members? Have they loyally and/or habitually been paying the same amount for 5, 10, 15 years? Do they use their benefits more than members at other levels? Be understanding and grateful of their commitment, and do everything you can to shepherd them into the new model.
2) Message, message, message, and continue messaging. No matter how many emails, postcards, lobby signs, letters, and Facebook posts you send out that your membership has changed, there will be members who didn't get the message and are confused at renewal time. Mitigate the confusion by reaching out as often and in as many channels as possible (and continue doing so for a little while after the switch has been made)
This was the way we did things, and 2 years in we found that
a) 45% of the people who were at the discounted levels when we removed them are still with us today, which is just slightly below the renewal rate of that group in the past (50%)
b) the vast majority of people who were at those levels decided to pay the extra fee for the same benefits as opposed to paying the same amount or less for fewer benefits
Good luck!
Thank you Summer, this is a really great insight into how it worked for you - particularly as you had exactly the same issue of removing those discounted individual rates. I will take into consideration the recommendations you make above, thanks!