NAEA – Membership Systems

Background
The National Association of Estate Agents, which has in the region of 10,000 members, is the leading - and by far the largest - professional body in estate agency and is represented through its members in more than 60 per cent of estate agency offices in the UK.

Like many membership organisations the NAEA recognised that it needed a long term strategy to ensure they reformed and developed its membership and moved away from its present 70% plus dependence on subscription revenue.

One of the outcomes of the strategic review was the need for a new membership administration system and integration across information services.

Approach
A high level specification was developed from the output of a number of inter-departmental workshops and face to face interviews. Following initial desk research and using a number of suppliers identified by NAEA, the specification was forwarded to the chosen suppliers. Using the response to the specification a shortlist for demonstration was drawn up and then negotiations were held with the chosen supplier.

The final part of this project entailed project management and process reengineering, including system configuration.

Benefits
When completed the Association will have reduced nine databases to one, given more visibility to the whole membership process and released over 25% of administration time. As a result of this last benefit staff can be engaged in higher value added tasks, such as marketing, customer care, and information generation and dissemination.

Testimonial
“The NAEA's membership database failed to provide the flexibility to enable all departments to efficiently market membership services. It required the preparation of a detailed specification which internally had been difficult to construct and AHC's contribution assisted greatly in providing a clear brief against which it was then possible to judge the various competing tenders.”
Hugh Dunsmore-Hardy, FRSA, FNAEA,
Former NAEA Chief Executive