Increase member retention with Dynamics 365

Features in Dynamics 365 that help with Membership Retention

Centralised Platform for all Member Information

Having a centralised view of members is key, not only to ensure your employees are working efficiently when finding information, but also for engaging in the best way with members. 

If your organisation is working across disconnected systems and spreadsheets, it can be a challenge to find accurate, up-to-date client information, let alone use this to effectively re-engage customers. 

One of our clients, The Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) previously faced similar challenges; working with an inflexible, on-premises membership database. Each association lacked visibility to their member data, and employees spent a significant amount of time searching for up-to-date information. On top of this, RMI was restricted from a marketing perspective due to limited data access and heavily relied on administration teams to manually manage the onboarding and renewals processes. 

This challenge is common across many other organisations and can be solved with a cloud-based solution such as Microsoft Dynamics 365; this provides access to up-to-date information anywhere, at any time. Employees can be confident they are working with the latest member data and reduce the time spent searching across multiple systems/spreadsheets, looking for this information.

Finally, a centralised solution ensures that employees are working with a single source of truth. This means that anyone who is supporting a member, is able to quickly access their record and quickly understand everything they need to know about them; member history, payments, subscriptions, renewal dates, associated information, etc.  

For example, Dynamics 365 can track when a renewal reminder has been sent to a client, and display this on the member record. Employees who view the record can quickly identify that the member has received this, and therefore there is no need to send it again. This not only saves time, but also provides a better member experience, as the member will not receive multiple, unnecessary communications from the organisation.

Email Automation

Emails are sent at various stages through the member lifecycle, not just during the renewal process. However, during this time, it is especially important that your communications are reaching your audience at the right time, with the right message.

For example, emails could be automatically sent in line with a membership renewal, displaying specific offers that entice the member to continue, such as offering a discount or freebie. These can be triggered at certain times, such as one month, two weeks, and a day before their membership expires. Alongside this, activities could also be generated within Dynamics 365 to ensure that an employee reaches out via a phone call if the member doesn’t act in response to the emails.

Renewal Automation

Automating renewal reminders is key at a large scale, as trying to manually manage this process is time-consuming and prone to human error. Dynamics 365 can automate reminders, ensuring that members are communicated with at the right time and aware of any possible incentives that come with their renewal. This can make a significant difference to renewal rates and messaging can even be personalised to increase chances.

Automations are not only limited to these two areas but there are also plenty of other activities that can be automated across an organisation. For example, invoicing, bookings, approvals and more can all be automated. Our team has experience with all of these please contact us for more information on how we could help you implement these.

Personalised Interactions

In a society where people are flooded with communications, standing out from the crowd is key. One simple way to start is by ensuring that any communications with members are personalised and tailored to them where possible. Not only does this make them feel valued, but if you are encouraging someone to renew their membership, ensuring that the message is tailored to them will increase the chances of renewal.

Of course, manually personalising every single communication with members would be a very time-consuming process, but handy features in Dynamics 365 support this process and make it easy to achieve in little time.

• Templates: Users can build templates for emails, such as a renewal reminder template, and set up a personalised field within this. When the email is sent, the system automatically populates the field with relevant data from the associated member record.
• Real-time marketing: Create trigger-based journeys, that react to specific customer actions. Through this, you can also increase touchpoints with a customer, giving a better chance of engagement and renewal. For example, if a renewal reminder is sent via email to a member, and the email is opened, the system recognises this and can then trigger a text message (SMS) to be sent, including a specific offer.
• Portals: Leveraging Microsoft Power Pages, organisations can build a membership portal, that enables clients to update their personal information, log complaints, book courses/classes and more. The data is automatically stored in their Dynamics 365 CRM system so data does not need to be reinput, and this up-to-date information can then be used for future communications.
• Historical Data: All interactions, notes, purchases, etc., can be stored in Dynamics 365 and associated with the relevant member record. This makes it easier than ever to personalise interactions with relevant information.

Engagement and Renewal Analytics

Ensuring you can monitor the effectiveness of your renewal efforts and any other membership activities is crucial. Without understanding what works and what needs improvement, how can you make decisions on a day-to-day basis and plan effectively?

Within Dynamics 365, dashboards and reports can be built to provide key metrics at a glance. For example, a dashboard could display the ratio of successful renewals versus lost renewals, average number of communications with a member before renewal, how many member renewals are upcoming within the next month, etc.

Organisations can then use this data to identify trends, what is working, areas of improvement, etc., and take the necessary actions.

Hopefully, this blog has provided insight into just some of the features available within Dynamics 365 that can support your membership organisation, particularly with membership retention. If you are interested in how Pragmatiq can support your organisation, please contact us at 01908 038110, email us at info@pragmatiq.co.uk or fill out our contact form.