The Future Is Now: How AI Is Revolutionizing Member Management

About a decade ago, AI was viewed as a dystopian nightmare confined to the Fortune 500 and startups of Silicon Valley. In 2023, artificial intelligence is rapidly finding its way into the everyday lives of the masses, whether they know it or not. The future is here, and AI is making waves across all industries—including membership businesses.  

Connecting with your members is fundamental, but there's more to it than just checking the pulse via surveys and one-on-one meetings. In today’s digital world, how you and your team interact with the community is evolving thanks to artificial intelligence—or should we say association intelligence? 

Member management is the key to creating a solid foundation and overall brand for associations. However, it’s become more challenging as the number of memberships has risen, and there’s a need to meet expectations faster and more efficiently. 

Leveraging AI and your most valuable asset (member data) is the most profitable way to make these services more innovative, personalized, and efficient than ever before. In this guide, we’ll dive into how AI is changing the game to improve member service and experience. 

Association Intelligence 

What is the blueprint for strategy and success within any association or membership organization? Engagement. 

Recruitment and retention are crucial; however, keeping your existing base involved and participative is equally imperative to boosting revenue. Unfortunately, traditional engagement has proven to be limited, dull, and in need of a makeover—opening a lane for AI. These are our most AI-enhanced factors to promote engagement and better your members' experience. 

Workplace Day-to-Day 

What is your member’s day-to-day? How are behind-the-scene logistics managed? 

Engagement is highly influenced by the way the team meshes and works together. Therefore, workplace organization and efficiency are paramount to boosting communication, collaboration, and productivity. 

Organizational applications, task managers, and collaboration tools can help the team manage their duties, track who is completing what, streamline manager tasks, collaborate on projects, and keep communication under one umbrella. Though these elements may seem simple, having technology automate and take care of them allows the time to be dedicated to more deserving obligations.   

Augment Your Events

Conferences and events are the subsistence of an organization's member engagement. From suggesting topics for speakers to tracking RSVPs, the toolbox is brimming with AI tools that make events more personalized, enjoyable, and, most importantly, accessible. 

As most events have shifted virtually, utilizing AI to develop a more interactive and immersive experience is essential to ensure engagement. With member data and collecting additional information, this technology can detect relevant interests, member needs, feedback, and priorities. These are all essential elements to designing an event that will pique curiosity, boost attendance, and sustain engagement. 

In addition, using AI-driven platforms to host these events, making them accessible to all, will be a prime token to keeping members engaged worldwide. 

Chatbots Have Entered The Conversation

Fielding member questions, concerns, and comments is crucial to ensuring members feel prioritized at any time of the day or night. Rather than having a human on call for any member's needs, AI-driven chatbots are now the tool of choice. 

Natural language processing can analyze member queries and provide more relevant answers. For example, chatbots can intercept straightforward questions or direct members to the right resources — if needed. Automating services via this technology can simplify member tasks, such as: 

• Membership renewals

• Fee collection

• Event registration and inquiries

• Benefit questions and utilization

• Answer frequently asked questions

Some industry leaders in this space include LivePerson and Intercom. 

Get Creative With Your Content

Content is the bread and butter to ramping up any organization's success. The more engaging and helpful the content, the more likely members will renew their membership. Publishing content, whether blogs, guides, e-books, or newsletters, is critical for SEO, branding, link building, and driving prospects to your organization’s website. 

Crafting engaging and personalized content requires a lot of time and effort. Many people within membership organizations spend hours upon hours every week drafting writing by hand.

Members can use AI to brainstorm creative blog ideas, generate writing pieces, edit content, and even modify the tone of voice. These tools make publishing faster and easier, thus allowing them to spend their time on more relevant and vital duties. 

Conclusion 

AI will be pervasive and transform many industries outside of the usual suspects. Integrating this technology within the member services space is still a relatively new concept. However, organizations that have already started to adopt these solutions have found them to be powerful allies in their quest to become industry leaders and better meet their members’ needs.

Read more here for a broader perspective of how AI is reshaping the workplace.