Zoho CRM as a Membership Management Solution
York Classic VWs (website: www.yorkclassicvws.co.uk) is a non profit, classic VW fan club in York, UK.
They contacted CRM Asia Solutions after seeing our 'Membership Management' solution and asked us to implement Zoho CRM to help them manage their members and track such things as member information, car details, dependents and other details, as well as revenue from membership dues, payment status and so on.
The Challenge
- To provide customisations that enabled York Classic VWs to continue using their current membership form.
- To centralise details of members in a web based 'customer relationship management' (CRM) system.
- To provide the functions to log and track membership payments and actual/potential club revenue.
The Solution
CRM Asia Solutions analysed the membership form in use at York Classic VWs and then, to minimise impact of the new system, customised the online customer relationship management solution to replicate the fields used in the existing membership form:
For example:
- Member Name and Contact Info - Address, Phone, Email etc (standard CRM fields)
- Contact Type - Member, Supplier, Donor etc
- Classic VW Forum Name - the screen names member(s) want for online forum discussions in the club website
- Dependents - husband / wife name, childrens names
- T-Shirt Size - XL, L, M, S
- Subscribe to Newsletter - Y/N
- VW Car Details - Model, Engine, Registration Number, Year, Colour, 'Name' & Modifications
We also created neat sections on the Contact (member) screen to help segment the information for ease of reference:
Membership dues are now logged and tracked using the standard CRM 'Potentials' (sales) module and this module can now be used to track actual and potential club revenue as well as trends like club revenue over time and other information related to membership income and donations.
In addition, as most clubs have to deal with a variety of suppliers/vendors, we customised the standard 'Accounts' module to include a simple segmentation on such fields as Account 'Type', for example: Supplier, Donor and so on. The benefit of this is that all companies that the club deals with can also be stored in the system, as well as club members, giving them a total solution for managing 'relations' of all parties the club interacts with.
We implemented all of this using the free version of Zoho CRM, so the club is able to use this software free of charge with limited (but adequate) functionality for up to 3 users for all time!
(Note: Zoho have recently updated their Zoho CRM pricing plans, please read our blog on this for more details.)
Finally, seeing that Kate at York Classic Vs is a busy person (!) we created a video specifically for York Classic VWs club managers, walking through the entire solution, and which is available to them only, to reference at any time.
The Result
York Classic VWs now have a cloud based membership management solution! And so far, so good. As Zoho CRM lives in the cloud, no software or hardware is required, and York Classic VWs club managers can easily access member information, contact them via email using the inbuilt email functions and even segment the information online from their club headquarters, at home, or even on their mobile devices!
Sending club newsletters has never been easier too - by using the inbuilt email template module York Classic VWs can now create monthly newsletters, bulletins or other mass emails; or even segment members by:
- Age
- Sex
- Car type
- Memship dues payment status
- And so on.
... to send communications to specific groups within the club members.
Further ongoing customisation of Zoho CRM for the club is possible - that being the beauty of Zoho CRM of course - the software can be changed as your club or your business changes, to match your specific needs and make your club/business management processes more efficient. We wish York Classic VWs all the best in their step towards cloud based membership management.
For more information on how we can implement Zoho CRM for club membership management, please contact us here.
