This Membee Users Group Rocks!
Last Thursday and Friday, the Ontario Membee Users Group held their Spring 2014 meeting in Guelph, Ontario. Users gathered from as far away as Longview, Texas for a jammed-packed two day meeting filled with sharing Membee tips & tricks that lead to organizational best practices. They were also kind enough to let the gang …
Last Thursday and Friday, the Ontario Membee Users Group held their Spring 2014 meeting in Guelph, Ontario. Users gathered from as far away as Longview, Texas for a jammed-packed two day meeting filled with sharing Membee tips & tricks that lead to organizational best practices. They were also kind enough to let the gang from Membee tag along!
Some session highlights included:
New Features Begin Here: User Focus Group
Everyone was put to work right away as the first session was a facilitated user feedback session where the Membee users split up into smaller groups to identify new features and capabilities that they would like to see in Membee. Each group presented their ideas for discussion with the entire group. After the ideas were explained, each user cast ballots on the ideas that would help them and their organization the most.
By the way, too many Membee features to count that are put to work each day by Membee’s global user base had their beginnings in Membee user focus groups such as this one.
Best Ways To Use Membee To…
This isn’t a “sit on your hands” group and this rapid fire session had everyone sharing their favorite tips & tricks such as:
- Streamline monthly Board reporting
- Reporting tricks to easily see your organization’s monthly “state of the union”
- Using online event registration to quickly process phone in event registrations
- And a whole bunch more!
Two Powerful New Membee Features Explored In Detail
Two major new features took center stage on Thursday afternoon as the group got into the details of how each feature could improve their business operations.
1 – New Member Signup Widget – Increase Revenues When New Members Join
Quickly, this feature allows organizations to make it easy for new members to join from the organization’s existing website. The process fully automates membership payment processing, the setup of the member record, and automates how a new member sets up their login credentials for “members only” features on the organization’s website.
New features reviewed in detail included:
- Enhanced member directory listing creation allowing the member to add their description, additional images and logos
- Additional items – this powerful feature allows for the sale of additional items as a part of the new member signup process. Common uses include
- Event registration
- Donations to specific funds and initiatives such as political action committee contributions
- Upselling their member to a higher level
- Collection of one-time only new member signup administration fees
The point and click interface for the new Additional Items feature makes it easy to add and remove time sensitive items from the new member signup form as needed.
Everything you need to get new members joining your organization’s website is contained in “Setting Up and Maintaining Your New Member Signup Form" (have your Membee username and password handy).
2 – Data Import – Get Growing With External Data Sources
This is a brand new Membee feature allows a user to bring data into Membee from an external spreadsheet. Popular uses for this new feature include:
- Importing lists of potential new members, flagging them as non-members and then taking advantage of Membee’s communication tools to promote the benefits of membership to the potential new members
- Exporting data from Membee, modifying it in a spreadsheet and importing it back in again. For example, changing the values in a Membee Categorization field for hundreds of members in the spreadsheet and then importing the members back into Membee.
Users shared some innovative places where they source prospective member data that they can now import and manage in Membee.
Everything you need to get new members joining your organization’s website is contained in “Import External Data Into Membee” (have your Membee username and password handy).
A Peek Behind the Curtain
One of the advantages of participating in this group is the opportunity to gain the competitive advantage from being able to see new Membee features before they are released. Well, this meeting was no different as a major new feature nearing completion was presented and demonstrated for the group.
The group has been the first to see new features in past years but this one is a biggie!
What we can tell you now is that this week, user group participants are huddling within their organizations to decide what to do with the freed up staff resources resulting from the massive reduction in membership admin time required when this new feature is released. Seriously, it may be the biggest feature we’ve ever released!
Stay tuned here in the Latest Buzz for the a series of detailed announcements regarding this new feature in the next few weeks.
C’mon, Get Involved!
The user group concluded their 2-day meeting with a brief planning session for their next meeting. They discussed and enthusiastically endorsed the idea of opening participation to any Membee user. So, come on in, the hive is a big place!
If you’re interesting about learning more about this Membee users group, send us a quick email at support@membee.com and we’ll connect you with the group’s organizing committee.
Since starting in my role 2 ½ years ago, I have been attending these user group sessions and each one of them has been a learning opportunity for me! Nothing replaces the face to face interaction you have with other users and the Membee staff – discussion is encouraged among us to explore and present solutions to common issues, creating best practices. The two days I spend at this meeting is invaluable and I have never come back to the office without a multitude of new ideas to further enhance our organization! Thanks for having me, looking forward to many… Read more »