I've been seeing a ton of questions online recently about how to improve the effectiveness and response rate of an exit survey after a member lapses.
When I see these, it makes me scratch my head. Why wouldn't we focus on winning them back while also finding out more from the member? Otherwise, we're just presuming their status as a lapsed member is the end of the road and only sending them a survey asking them questions.
Most organizations try to get members to renew by sending out a series of renewal reminders and broadcasts. Then finally after we can't get them to renew, maybe an exit survey to dissect the corpse.
Would a conversational approach to engagement work better to dig deeper into the reason for the lapse?
When our clients start a conversation with lapsed members by asking, "Did you know your membership expired?", would you believe 53% of lapsed members on average didn't even know their membership had lapsed?!?
Even after a dozen broadcast email reminders, they weren't aware... but they answered this question because it's easy. Which then gives us the opportunity to understand why they're hesitating to renew, and address it right there and then. So we're not only asking them WHY but we're opening the door for conversation with the attempt to get them to rejoin.
A recent client showed us that they were able to renew 45% of the lapsed members that had no idea their membership had lapsed, compared to 7% win-back on those who said they did know their membership had lapsed. They did this by engaging them in conversation.
Surveys don't spark a conversation. Let's focus on the win-back. Not the corpse.
Dave Will
While working for SAP, a multi-billion dollar software company, nearly 20 years ago, Dave Will was advised to "Walk faster and smile less, because perception is reality." Dave took this feedback to heart and started a business based on the antithesis of this advice. Fourteen years later, Dave successfully sold Peach New Media, a Learning Management System for associations, which is now part of Community Brands.
Since then, Dave and his leadership team from Peach built an engagement platform called PropFuel, the first Conversational Engagement platform designed specifically for member based organizations to improve member engagement using the Ask, Capture, Act methodology.
Dave lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts with his 3 boys, 3 boy dogs and his formidable wife, Nicole. He's an endurance runner and pretends to work from his boat in Buzzards Bay, MA as much as possible all summer long.