Royal Society of Chemistry: Unpaid Member Renewal Campaign

RSC membership year runs from January to December with all membership payments due by the 1st January each year. Members are given a six month grace period and are considered to be lapsed at the end of June if they have not made the due payment. Typically, 80% of members pay their fees by February leaving 20% still unpaid in March.

RSC commissioned Chord to deliver a campaign with the following objectives to:

• Engage with unpaid members to encourage them to renew by effectively communicating membership benefits and answering any questions that they may have.
• Encourage those who wish to renew to switch to Direct Debit payments, if they normally pay by credit/debit card.
• Gain insight by capturing and reporting on valuable information about why unpaid members have decided not to renew.

Following extensive briefing on RSC’s membership benefits and having gained approval for a detailed campaign brief, Chord set to work.

In total, 2,999 members, associate members’ and students contact details were provided by RSC and then prepared by Chord for calling.

The agreed approach required Chord to:

• Optimise reach via first and second calls during office hours and utilising evening calling where needed.
• Send tailored emails to unpaid members using a @rsc.org domain address to members to whom Chord were unable to speak not where requested.
• Transfer unpaid members to the RSC membership team, who wished to renew by credit/debit card.
• Collect direct debit details and securely transfer information to RSC.
• Refer members to the RSC membership team when questions fell outside of the scope of the campaign.
• Suppress records from calling, as and when instructed by RSC.
• Securely return data for resigning members with details captured for their reasons and all updates made to the contact data originally supplied. This enabled the RSC to update their membership CRM database.

In addition, a further 341 members expressed their intention to renew.

To achieve this, Chord:

• completed 40 telemarketing days
• made 4,618 calls
• had 1,193 direct conversations with members
• left 1,585 voicemails
• sent 3,544 emails

It became apparent during the campaign that a significant proportion of members preferred to complete their renewal online. Members did express their pleasure at receiving a reminder, as this did prompt them to renew.

Three of the main reasons given for non-renewal prior to the call included: forgetfulness; awaiting pay day; that the members’ employer was making payment and that it was in hand. For members who had finally decided not to renew following due consideration, reasons included: leaving the profession; not using membership benefits fully; maternity/paternity leave.

A significant indirect benefit of the campaign was that 19% of members’ contact data was updated.

Recommendations made by Chord included:

• Changing the timing for the calls, following the renewal communication.
• Reducing the grace period or limit access to some membership benefits as the grace period progresses, to encourage members to consider renewing earlier.
• Expand the use of evening calls to allow members to be transferred to renew via card payments after work.
• Sending reminders to students to coincide with student loan instalments at the start of each term, followed by timely calls if renewal payments are not received.
• Calling students in the evening, weekends and/or during non-term time.