Before we get into the details of a membership billing platform, let’s quickly understand a bit about memberships:
Membership means being a member of a store, an organization, or a group. It brings in value-added services, exclusivity for members, additional discounts, member specific products and pricing, free gifts, vouchers, etc.
For example, a gym subscription in a sports club gives you access to the gym only, while a membership of the club could give you access to all facilities available at better discounts.
Similarly, you must have heard of TATA Neu pass that is a super app with membership which provides discounts and other offers to its members for availing Tata digital services.
Membership is available in most of the industries now such as aviation, travel and tourism, hospitality, publication, pharmacy, etc.
Memberships offer varied member privileges depending upon the industry. For example, a Swiggy membership would offer free dessert and would waive off delivery charges, or give cashbacks, and more.
Sports clubs could offer merchandise, tickets, and VIP passes.
Aviation membership privileges can include frequent flyer miles, lounge access, etc.
Similarly, travel and tourism, hospitality, and publications offer multiple membership privileges.
For example, membership in travel and tourism like Mahindra clubs could get you access to exclusive resorts, member-specific pricing, discounts, loyalty points, cashback, free tours to places nearby, and much more.
This brings us to our first question:
How to Manage Memberships?
These memberships are created and managed through a comprehensive platform termed membership billing and management platform. The membership management platform manages your entire customer journey, provides valuable insights for informed decisions, monitors KPIs, collects payments, automates your entire billing operations, and retains customers through campaign management. It also takes care of reporting on business metrics, revenue recognition, and business global expansion.
How to Select a Membership Management Platform?
Selecting a membership management platform can be difficult, but we are here to help you out. Some of the basic questions you need to ask while selecting a membership management platform are:
- How to track thousands of membership data?
- Does the platform handle multiple memberships for a customer?
- Does it provide seamless customer onboarding and checkout?
- Does it limit the number of integrations and have a single source of truth?
- Do you need a separate campaign management for customer retention?
- Does the platform have sections such as referrals, gifts, digital wallet, loyalty points, vouchers, and customer portal?
- How many payment collecting options does the platform offer?
- What will happen if the customer refuses to pay?
- Does the platform offer real time business insights?
- Does it scale to global geographies, multiple currency offerings, and global taxes?
- How do you handle memberships involving physical products (inventory, tracking)?
Let’s take a look at some of the important elements of a membership management platform ecosystem:
Features to Look for in a Membership Billing Platform
A membership billing platform that maintains high transparency and has minimum integration touch points is considered the best. Here is a list of features that should ideally be present in a membership billing platform:
- Built in CRM
- Customer onboarding and checkout
- Campaign management
- Flexible product catalog and pricing models (applicable worldwide)
- Global currency and taxation support
- Real-time dashboard and analytics
- Customer portal, API driven platform for easy 3rd party integrations
- Multi-lingual NMS
- Built-in customer care and global payment gateways support
With the right membership billing platform, you can focus on your core competencies without worrying about customer retention, billing, collections, and reporting.
In case you are still stuck with hours of manual operations, multiple integrations, systems working in silos, poor reporting, and tired of coordinating with multiple companies, you need to get in touch with us at Magnaquest.
Magnaquest’s SURE is the one and only platform that provides true end-to-end membership management solution. Unlike most other companies, we look beyond onboarding, collecting payment, and providing content and reports.
Our membership billing platform revolves around forming a long-term relationship with the end users, which demands advanced acquisition and retention strategies, better insights on customer behavior, and the capability to handle cross-side network effects in an enterprise ecosystem.
Magnaquest SURE answers every membership management challenge. Our platform acts as a single window of truth for the entire business and most importantly, at each hierarchy level, the information is presented and shared as per business priorities. With the built-in CRM, campaign management, helpdesk, and business intelligence, you no longer have to look at different systems and coordinate information. Further you don’t have to worry about wasting time and effort on multiple integrations and needless to say, you will save a few bucks for your organization.
