When it comes to Member Success Management, you first need to know where the Member is right now (point A).
When they’re just getting started, this is easy.
However, when they’ve been using your product or resource for the last18 months to help them reach their Desired Outcome through their Appropriate Experience with your organization, and they have increased the breadth and depth of that use, brought their product into other areas of their company, purchased some add-ons, added capacity, and just purchased a license for an adjacent product, and there’s a second wave of users getting ready to start the onboarding process, it gets a bit more challenging.
It’s situations like these where technology like bots – and the underlying Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning – hold so much as-yet unrealized promise, but that’s a topic for another day.
Regardless of the complexity of the Member’s relationship with you, you should be able to know where the Member and users are always in their life cycle as a member.
Second, you need to know what the next Progress Milestone is for the Member (point B). When the Member is just starting out, or their relationship with us isn’t complex, knowing the next Progress Milestone for that Member is necessary.
Then you need to figure out the steps required to move the Member from point A to point B.
This includes things they will do using your product, things they need to do on their own outside the product, etc. (the promised Conditions).
Some things they do, you’ll have direct visibility into; others will need to be self-reported. Some things, your Members will know how to do, but some things will require training, guidance, or professional services. For the things you can’t do for them, you will need to provide or point them to the resources to bridge those “Success Gaps.“
Systematized Member Success Management
To operationalize Member Success Management, you will need to proactively intervene in the appropriate way for that Member segment (a mix of technology and human touches; the “appropriate” part will dictate the ratios therein) to get them to do the things they need to do to move from point A to point B.
If they do those things, great; they’re on their way to being successful.
If they don’t do those things, however, you need to change up and/or escalate intervention modalities to get them to act.
If an email is sent to get the Member to take the next required action, and that action is not taken (regardless of whether the email is opened or the link is clicked), send a different email from a different person.
If the action still isn’t taken, escalate the modality to another option for contact – perhaps a social contact platform – Facebook Messenger or SMS. If the required action is still not taken, escalate to a phone call that, upon connection, brings the Member Success Manager into the mix.
What starts as a proactive intervention to move them toward their Desired Outcome escalates to a Reactive Intervention to prevent the Member from going off course and getting them back on track.
Of course, there are other context clues to keep in mind – Are they on vacation? Are they out on some sort of Personal Leave from Work, etc. – but, in general, this is what needs to happen.
Done correctly, systematizing Member Success Management will take you from just Member Success to Member Success-driven Growth.
Memberships Matter! 