Access Loyalty Blog

Adapting to Member Feedback: 5 More Best Practices for Effective Communication

kendra.lusty@accessdevelopment.com (Kendra Lusty) — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 13:42:50 GMT

In our last article, Communicating the Value of Membership: 6 Best Practices for Effective Communication, we discussed how your relationship with your members can only be as strong as your ability to communicate. After all, your outreach program is the best way for you to showcase all the many benefits of membership.

If your communication efforts don’t have a clear message, or if they aren’t being seen in the first place, then it’s your relationship with members that will suffer the most.

Consider these statistics which show what people expect from communication with the businesses they frequent:

Consistent Member Engagement: 6 Best Practices for Effective Communication

kendra.lusty@accessdevelopment.com (Kendra Lusty) — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 15:32:47 GMT

You work so hard to ensure your membership provides value to your members. But it won’t do you any good if your members don’t know about it. The last thing you want is for your communication be the weak link that prevents your relationships from being as strong as they can be.

Unfortunately, talking to members can sometimes feel like a one-sided conversation.

Whether you're sending emails, leaving phone messages, posting on social media or pinning flyers to message boards, you don't always get to see the response. Yet, the hope is everyone reads carefully and reacts enthusiastically.

Magic Awaits: How To Help Members Prepare for a Safe Visit to Disney Parks

michelle.white@accessdevelopment.com (Michelle White) — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 14:45:00 GMT

Summer vacations certainly didn’t pan out this year like we all envisioned.

Most Spring Break travel was re-routed to the back yard as the entire country canceled their travel plans and hunkered down to control the spread of the dangerous coronavirus.

And not even the happiest place on earth was immune.

Disneyland® Resort closed its Anaheim, CA gates for only the fourth time since the park opened. Walt Disney World® in Orlando, FL had closed a few more times due to impending hurricanes but each of those closures lasted only a day or two. These multi-month park closures for COVID-19 have been nothing short of historic.

And while many Americans may not be ready to venture too far away from home just yet, at some point, people will indeed be ready – and eager – to travel again.

Travel and Tourism Statistics: The Ultimate Collection

Andrew.Graft@accessdevelopment.com (Andrew Graft) — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Ray Bradbury – author of the space travel and colonization classic The Martian Chronicles – once wrote, “Half of the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness.”

What did Mr. Bradbury mean when he penned this now famous quote? We may never know.

Don’t get the wrong idea, of course. We get the part about travel being extra rewarding when people get far off the beaten path into places they didn't even know existed. (Duh.)

What civilization will always wonder is this. Did he mean “half” in the general sense, as in give or take a third? Or “half” in the 50% sense, where if he’d meant 51 percent, he’d have said 51 percent?

Whatever the math behind Ray’s statistical calculations, one thing we know for sure…

People looooooove to travel.

Families and individuals of all ages, sizes and incomes. To faraway lands. For weekend getaways. To pursue new business deals. With kids. Without kids. On planes, trains, automobiles, boats and buses.

And when it comes to the best corporate discount programs, association member benefits, and membership perks in general, discounted travel is often among the most hotly pursued additions to the mix. Why? Because lots of money AND emotional expectation are wrapped up in most of our travel purchase decisions.

So to better understand today’s traveler, we at Access have compiled what we believe is a comprehensive “ultimate collection” of statistics having to do with the travel and tourism industry. We've tried to make this list as relevant as possible, which means we combed through recent research from travel and tourism related sources.

Most of these stats are focused on Americans who travel – though other nationalities may creep into the mix from time to time. We've provided source links for each statistic. Sometimes you’ll find the data conflicts with other sources - so we’ll leave it up to you to decipher which is most accurate.

We'll keep this list updated regularly with the latest and greatest. If you know of a stat we're missing, or want your own research included in our collection, leave us a note in the comments. Enjoy!

The Cost of Travel: How Much People Spend
Demographics: A Profile of People Who Travel
Destinations: Where People Go When They Travel
Reasons & Decisions: Why People Travel & How They Decide
Activities: What People Do When They Travel
Other Travel Statistics

The Member Journey: Finding and Enhancing Moments of Truth

kendra.lusty@accessdevelopment.com (Kendra Lusty) — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:58:15 GMT

Much has been studied about the customer journey. The world’s largest brands and corporations have all contributed to the pool of knowledge. They’ve studied from every angle what it takes to convince a person to purchase their product/service/doodad/you name it.

Unfortunately there are not quite so many resources out there for organizations for help in understanding the member journey.

At Access, we’ve been studying and pondering this for years, gathering membership statistics and analyzing different moments of the journey to the tune of hundreds of articles over the last decade or two.

Member Engagement: 5 Strategies for Positive Engagement through Hardship

kendra.lusty@accessdevelopment.com (Kendra Lusty) — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 15:00:00 GMT

In March, I set up a Zoom meeting with my family for the first time in my life.

Between loud kids of all ages, varied internet speeds, my screen mysteriously turning me green, and my dear, sweet grandma’s hearing aid issues...

It was 5% awesome and 95% chaotic nonsense.

So, only a little higher percentage chaotic nonsense than a typical family gathering.

I kid, I kid. Connecting with my family is always revitalizing. Over the years, we’ve had many reasons why we couldn’t physically meet. Siblings found jobs out of state, illnesses cancelled plans, etc. And of course, recently everyone was encouraged to forego proximity to loved ones for an extended amount of time.

A Buyers Guide for Turn-key Discount Programs for Member Organizations

gary.toyn@accessdevelopment.com (Gary Toyn) — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 14:45:00 GMT

Want to know how to identify a discount program that can effectively attract and engage your members? This comprehensive buyers guide gives you the tools you need to identify and assess the best discount network for your program.

Savings on Everyday Essentials: Access' Response to COVID-19

kendra.lusty@accessdevelopment.com (Kendra Lusty) — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 13:05:00 GMT

You may have noticed our blog has been quiet for a few weeks as we focused elsewhere during the recent outbreak of COVID-19. Or, if you haven’t noticed because more urgent concerns fill your attention, we understand. We hope you and yours are safe, healthy and ready to help each other recover.

It’s nice to be back exploring loyalty and member engagement on this blog again. For today, we wanted to share our personal journey in navigating the effects of the worldwide pandemic.

When Access Development’s hometown of Salt Lake City received the official stay at home order in March we, like many others, got an unexpected crash course in working remotely. And our immediate concern was providing seamless service to the clients who trust us, most of whom were similarly scrambling to adjust.

2020 Customer Engagement & Loyalty Statistics

gary.toyn@accessdevelopment.com (Gary Toyn) — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT

Now more than ever, staying abreast of the most effective loyalty and engagement practices is critical to surviving in a turbulent business environment.

As a loyalty and engagement company, we've spent the last few years scouring the digital universe to find the stats that matter most. For your convenience, we've vetted and curated the data and compiled them here. It's the most exhaustive collection of loyalty and engagement statistics anywhere on the web.

If you need some data to help you make a business decision, write an article, or if you need a few stats to help you prepare a business proposal, look no further.

(Be sure to bookmark or subscribe to our email to be notified of any significant changes.)

Note: the stats below and more from recent years can be discovered on this page here: Ultimate Collection of Loyalty Statistics.

If you have any statistic or relevant data you'd like to share, don't be shy - drop it in the comments below.

Enjoy!

2020 Customer Loyalty Statistics
2020 Loyalty Program / Loyalty Marketing Statistics
2020 Retail Loyalty Statistics
2020 Restaurant Loyalty Statistics
2020 B2B Loyalty Statistics

40 Specific Member Engagement Tactics Any Organization Can Use

brandon.carter@accessdevelopment.com (Brandon Carter) — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 14:39:00 GMT

In a perfect world new members join your organization with an understanding of your purpose and your value to them.

They renew forever and ever and refer their friends who become loyal members themselves. Everyone's happy and dancing and singing and sharing candy and life is just awesome.

The real world obviously works a bit differently.

In the real world there are dozens of reasons why someone might join your organization. Once they've joined, each member has dozens of reasons why they might or might not retain their membership.

In the real world they often whine, complain, bicker and most definitely do not share their candy.

This is reality, where membership organizations fight a constant battle to keep members engaged and focused amidst a million other priorities and distractions.

Member engagement is how you're going to earn the loyalty you need to thrive and grow.

What you're looking to do is build avenues for engagement that any member can connect with.

Not all of them will attend live events.

Not all of them will network with fellow members.

Not all of them will ever visit your website even once.

None of those mean they're not engaged and active. None of those mean they won't renew their membership or tell their peers to join.

You can still build excitement and action with every member.

It just takes energy, a lot of effort, and some creativity.

We're here to help.