Strengthening the relationship with our members - BPA Account Management Initiative
The British Parking Association
The British Parking Association is a not for profit organisation, representing, promoting and influencing the parking and traffic management profession throughout the UK and Europe. Our membership of more than 700 organisations and individuals includes local authorities, car park operators, retail parks, healthcare facilities, universities, railway stations, technology providers, trainers and consultants. We work with our partners to support growth for our communities, improve compliance by those managing and using parking facilities, and encourage fairness to achieve our vision of excellence in parking for all. Any surplus income arising from our work is reinvested back into activities to support our members or put into a reserve fund to ensure we can continue to raise standards and encourage professionalism. Our 5-year strategy outlines our core objectives: • Putting the consumer at the heart of our thinking • Developing our membership and delivering better value • Informing and influencing Government • Building a consensus with all stakeholders • Promoting innovation, technology and sustainability • Making parking a recognised profession
National
West Sussex,
GB
www.britishparking.co.uk
Success achieved
Allocating Account Managers to BPA members resulted in better member engagement and more relevant member offerings.
- Website
- https://www.britishparking.co.uk
- Project dates
- 2016 - 2017
Project team
- Caron Fassetta - Head of Membership & Information Management
- Yasmin Jefferies - Membership Development Manager
- Sarah Feeley - Account Manager for Individual Members / Consultants
- Alison Tooze - Account Manager for Local Authorities
- Aimee Bates - Systems Lead
Tools & Systems
We have reviewed all communication touchpoints and revised our processes accordingly. This has made us more able to respond quickly and appropriately to whatever communication we receive or have sent out.
A few examples are as follows:
- Full review of all navigation, content and Google analytics relating to the members area of our website
- Review of content for Parking News – our monthly membership magazine – with more member-led features, articles and news pieces
- Better use of targeted email communications using Dynamics – full review of opens / bounces / responses
By far the most significant system upgrade is well underway as we look to upgrade our current and outdated CRM system, with a new fully integrated CRM platform which will be the single biggest investment the association has ever made. We are currently in the process of selecting the chosen provider, which will allow us to implement early next year.
Introduction
Our corporate membership has remained around 700 for over a decade.
We undertook a robust appraisal of our activities and impact. As part of this, we streamlined our member survey and for the first time encouraged members to participate in a short phone interview, focusing on what matters to them. This increased our member response rate by over 35%.
The output reflected a traditional association model with the usual challenges around communication and consistent membership engagement. It also highlighted a rapidly changing sector and a need to be increasingly responsive to meet changing member expectations. This informed a significant reorganisation (in early 2016) aimed at strengthening member engagement and integrating information management.
Since then our team has created new and innovative ways to re-engage with members. A key turning point for us becoming a motivating organisation was recasting our organisation around people rather than products and processes. We put people at the heart of everything we do by redeploying our human resources through the launch of the Account Management initiative which is exceeding member expectations.
Discovery
We went through many stages on the way to implementing Account Managers and much of our ‘research’ took the form of trying things that failed or netted little returns. Initiatives included many member surveys, having one manager responsible for engaging with over 600 organisations and outlining what we thought our members should be doing rather than helping them work out how they were going to do it. We recognised that some decisions we made were based upon assumptions about what our members thought or wanted.
We now have five dedicated Account Managers. Each oversees and provides support to a specific group of members of the same organisational type with shared interests. They have proactively contacted members to find out more about their operations, challenges and priorities, gaining an insight into what the world looks like from their perspective. We have been able to reach out to members who we had had limited or no interaction with previously.
The resulting intelligence is steering development of member services, activities, lobbying activities and event programs. Because we have a much richer, in-depth knowledge of what is of interest to them, we have seen an uptake in event attendance, e-mail opens, sponsorship and a significant swell in ad-hoc enquiries coming in from members to their Account Manager. Retention has improved in that we haven’t lost a member due to dissatisfaction since the initiative started and recruitment activities are showing early signs of success.
Objectives
Although identifying the metrics and indicators that enable us to measure engagement is one crucial aspect for evaluating how successful our measures are proving, we realised it will not in itself engender better engagement. To succeed we knew we needed to seek to build relationships and encourage action.
By developing membership engagement strategies, we are seeking to:
- Increase member satisfaction
- Deliver relevant and valued services to members
- Be seen as relevant and in touch with our members
- Encourage greater involvement with the Association
- Deliver value for money
- Better understand the needs, priorities and interests of members in all member segments
- Be representative of our members across all member segments
We have made significant progress in all areas and, due to us reframing our business model around these objectives, we are able to sustain and develop the relationship building we have started.
Activities
Our first task was to assign our members to their account managers. Our membership was already divided up into ‘electoral colleges’ (i.e. similar organisations grouped together for the purposes of our governance structure). In looking at the skills and experience of our account managers, it became clear that certain groups fitted nicely with each of the account managers. We had to ensure that, in a small team of both full-time and part-time staff, we allocated groups of members in a fair and manageable way. In addition, the account manager role is supplementary to the team’s ‘day job’ so workload and other responsibilities also had to be considered.
Once allocated, we needed to agree on what the account management tasks and responsibilities would be. This was developed in a collaborative way with the whole team, drawing on the thoughts and feedback of more experienced members of staff.
We agreed on a recording tool to keep track of our account management activities. We also had to agree on what we would record so that we were consistent in our approach (for example, if you speak to a member several times about just one issue or topic, do you count each point of contact or just to one?).
Finally, we drew up a plan to inform our members, as well as the rest of the Association, of this initiative. This included pieces within our e-zine, our magazine Parking News, as direct contact with members via the telephone.
As the initiative progressed and we received detailed feedback from members, we realised that we needed to make sure we acted on that feedback and didn’t just concentrate on recording it. This was regularly discussed at our team meetings and we also set up Account manager meetings once a month. Therefore, we ensure that feedback from members is shared with the wider team and ideas about how best to progress changes is shared. Recommendations are then made to our Senior Management Team for sign off. Issues, themes and activities are then fed into and influence our events, training, communications and guidance tools.
By taking these simple steps we have created a culture shift where members feel listened to and engaged.
Innovation
Our conversations with other associations leads us to believe appointing Account Managers is innovative. We’re not currently aware of any other association which has adopted this approach.
Attending the 2016 Association Congress further supported this restructuring model as we were one of only a couple of organisations who had acknowledged the importance of information management. This will be increasingly valuable as we move towards an extensive support program for our members prior to the introduction of GDPR in 2018.
Moving the website and monthly magazine within the membership team remit creates further opportunities for our engagement and communications to be more coordinated and cohesive. More than ever before, content is driven by members for members and is far more dynamic and reflective of the diversity of sector.
We are able to plan our events far in advance, allowing creative time to get the right content and materials in place to achieve the best outcomes for our members. Cross promoting events in advance helps us ‘sell’ to the widest audience. While listening to member feedback ensures improvements are made for the following year. This was clear during this year’s Annual Conference which was described by so many as the very best yet.
We’ve supported the above with robust business processes so the success of our activities isn’t reliant on just one or two individuals within the Association. This has helped strengthen our collaborative team working, building much needed resilience across the organisation to deliver consistently excellent service.
Marketing
Much of the marketing of the Account Manager service has been done by the managers themselves reaching out to members. A communications campaign was conducted late 2016 to make members aware of the additional support and one point of contact available to them with a photograph and contact details of their Account Manager included as a personal touch. Our publication, Parking News, has been well utilised to increase awareness of the initiative, including interview features with each manager to enable members to get to know them better.
Over the course of this year every member will have been invited to have one to one conversations with their Account Manager and since January more than 1250-member touchpoints have been recorded across the team.
Account Managers have found that facilitating communication between members and also between council representatives and their electorate is a highly effective way to increase engagement.
We’ve found that members respond much better to peer to peer led communications than to most things coming out centrally from the Association and these recommendations are proving to be a highly successful marketing tool. An example of this can be demonstrated by the way our Annual Conference 2017 was promoted with members proactively getting involved and encouraging others to attend rather than just the usual head office led marketing campaign. We are enhancing the power of the networking community and beginning to reap the benefits of this approach.
We believe the introduction of Account Managers is in itself an innovative approach and has radically changed not only the relationship with members but also the entire culture of our organisation.We’ve found that members respond much better to peer to peer led communications than to most things coming out centrally from the Association and these recommendations are proving to be a highly successful marketing tool. An example of this can be demonstrated by the way our Annual Conference 2017 was promoted with members proactively getting involved and encouraging others to attend rather than just the usual head office led marketing campaign. We are enhancing the power of the networking community and beginning to reap the benefits of this approach.
Challenges
Whilst some members were very quick to take advantage of having a dedicated account manager and were keen to spend time sharing their challenges, feedback and suggestions, others were harder to engage with.
We were conscious that continued emailing and calling could have a detrimental impact on what we were trying to achieve. We have therefore, taken an approach that balances persistency with giving people the time and space that suits them. We keep detailed notes on who we have contacted, how we did so and what their response was, so that we can tailor our account management activities around their preferences. Some like to hear from us on a regular basis, others prefer to contact us when they feel the need to. The important thing is that we have tailored our approach to each member.
Achievements
We’ve made significant progress in building strong relationships with all groups. In particular, the relationship between staff and members has significantly strengthened due to clearer lines of communication with one point of contact.
We have innovated our service offering with the introduction of for example: PR Line, GDPR Line and HR Line offering our corporate members 30 minutes free expert advice about matters relating to any of those specialist areas.
The Account Management initiative has enabled us to target our communications to illicit much greater involvement and information from our members about key issues and how we can help overcome them.
Our focus has been on visibly improving our services so everyone understands the full range of benefits and how to access them when they need them.
We’re undertaking a procurement process for a new CRM system allowing for an online membership community platform.
We’ve had the highest number of nominations for vacant positions on our Council – 40 representatives from every membership sector - indicating that people understand they can get involved and play a pivotal part in how their membership association is run.
Targets & Statistics
Over the last twelve months we have seen a 1% net gain in our corporate membership numbers. This increase must be viewed within the context of an increasing number of public and private sector mergers and the continuing budgetary pressures faced by both members and potential members. We believe this demonstrates how valued BPA membership is to our members.
Our Account Management activities have also enabled us to identify and increase the number of touch points with our corporate membership organisations by over seven hundred per cent over the last three months. This has help our members better understand and maximize (across their internal operations) the value added of membership.
Financials
There have been no direct financial costs incurred in rolling out the account manager initiative. However, the consequential returns have been significant. As a result of the rich intelligence received through account management contacts with members, we have been able to shape our events in a much more engaging, relevant and innovative way. This has resulted in significant increases in received revenue at our major events.
An overview of our success in these areas is as follows:
- Our 2017 Parkex Exhibition saw a 52% increase in revenue compared to 2016.
- Our annual conference revenue has increased by 6% in the last 12 months
- Sponsorship revenue has increased by 92% in the last 12 months
As a not for profit organisation, all surplus revenue received is re-invested in future events and other member benefits, further enhancing the experience of our members and providing them with best value for money.
What would we do differently?
In an ideal world our current CRM would have the ability to aid the record keeping and data management associated with this initiative. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. We are currently going through a tendering process for a new CRM and it would have been good to have this in place prior to the account management initiative. However, we felt it was too important to delay by another twelve months and so have ‘made do’ with Excel spreadsheets.
Feedback & Testimonials
‘Prior to October 2016 the BPA recognised the need for improvements to member engagement and embarked on a new governance structure which is now fully implemented. This has resulted in better dissemination of information to the membership and easier lines of communication to the BPA staff and Board members. As current President and also Chair of the Wales group I have noticed a significant increase in the interaction at group meetings with increased feedback from attendees. The BPA have a staff member attend every meeting to give the BPA update and this is very well received and ensures every member at the meeting or reading the minutes afterwards is fully informed of issues pertaining to the parking industry including where government consultations are occurring that affect the membership such as the private parking Bill.’
Peter Lowe, BPA President
‘Past months have shown that there’s a feeling of ‘belonging’ to an excellent organisation that is outward looking and forward thinking amongst what is now an enthused membership. Retention rate is always an issue for any membership organisation especially with pressures faced by significant fiscal challenges. However, the BPA has met this challenge head on and delivered positive results. The members are engaged and are interacting with their account managers which benefits the sector. Working in this new “out of the box” approach helps create further opportunities for one to one engagement facilitating the strengthening of relationships between the members and the staff alike. This has culminated in reinforcing and advancing the purpose of the association now and in the future.’
Anjna Patel, Chair of the Professional Development and Standards Board
Wider impact
The biggest impact has been the change in the culture of the BPA. We are observing a shift from being viewed as a separate entity to an inclusive, welcoming ‘club’ that members feel a real part of.
Account Managers have reported that members seem genuinely delighted that their Association is showing so much interest in them and in turn it encourages them to get involved and share their valuable expertise.
Staff have reported a much greater sense of job satisfaction because they feel more able to make a difference for members. So much so, we were awarded gold status by Investors in People in April this year.
Council members are also significantly more engaged and active which has been evident in the lead up to the Annual Conference and in discussions at council meetings. We have seen record numbers of candidates putting themselves forward for election to the BPA council and a much higher level of voting for these seats.
As a result of account manager feedback we have created two improvement plans – one for corporate membership and one for individual membership. Members are actively involved in both of these work streams.
Our flagship tradeshow, Parkex 2017, saw an unprecedented increase in visitor numbers of more than 16%, with 200 member exhibitors coming together in the evening to celebrate the event’s 25th anniversary party.
Attendance at our special interest group meetings, which are all supported by the Account Managers, has increased across the country, and we have reinvigorated several key sector and national group meetings that had ceased for many years. This has been very much welcomed by the membership in those sectors/nations.
