Its aim is to keep their professional knowledge up to date. The association achieves this through numerous workshops and seminars. And successfully so, as around 1,500 people have now joined. Just like its members, MAB also keeps up with the times. Thanks to CommunityManager , membership management and administration have become effortless. Lesley Debie is the all-rounder at MAB. She needs to know everything: which seminars are coming up, who still needs to pay their membership fee and which trainees were satisfied with the course they attended. This is essential, as she has managed the association’s secretariat for eleven years.
Just imagine having to send invoices manually to 1,500 members during the annual mass invoicing process. o say that Lesley breathed a sigh of relief in 2014 would be an understatement. The switch to CommunityManager significantly reduced her mountain of paperwork. It also ensures that she never loses track of an overdue payment. “We heard about the CommunityManager software solution through another organisation and were quickly convinced. You have to imagine that, at the time, we were still working with an Access database in which all data had to be entered manually. What a hassle! You have to keep up with the times. To work faster and more efficiently, you need to automate. It is as simple as that.”
Significant time savings through the automation and digitalisation of administrative tasks with CommunityManager
From teething problems to child’s play
The transition to CommunityManager went smoothly. “Within a few months, I had mastered it. There were still a few teething problems at first, so I spent quite a bit of time on the phone for a while (laughs). Of course, a new system takes some getting used to. But those issues have since been resolved. Alistar also responds very quickly. If I encounter an issue, I usually receive a response that same day.” How would she compare her responsibilities before and after the software was installed? “Where do I begin? It really is a world of difference. CommunityManager is essentially one large database that contains a great deal of information and lets you get even more out of it.
Here is an example. As an accountant or bookkeeper, you are required to complete 40 hours of continuing professional development. You need to provide evidence of those hours, which means obtaining a certificate confirming your attendance at the seminars. Before 2014, this literally meant stamping a piece of paper for every participant. We now use a membership card with a barcode. It is scanned when you enter and again at the end of the seminar. Afterwards, you simply receive your certificate by email.”
The same applies to the course materials. “In the past, we had to print nine hundred copies and hand them out at the start of the workshop. That took time and money and also had a significant environmental impact. Everything is now paperless: we send everyone a PDF in advance, and that is it.”
Does MAB want to know whether participants enjoyed a seminar? “We also send the evaluation form by email. The responses are automatically added to our system, saving the MAB secretariat a great deal of time-consuming manual data entry and allowing us to improve our courses proactively.”
Reach members quickly and easily
Another advantage of CommunityManageris that you can quickly reach your target audience using built-in mailing tool. “A seminar generally has around one hundred available places. Send an email to all 1,500 members and, believe me, those hundred places will fill up quickly.”
The system also makes it possible to send a mailing to a specific selection of members. “Is an instructor ill? You can quickly notify everyone who registered for the course and inform them of the replacement date afterwards. Thanks to an integration with our accounting software, everyone also receives their invoice automatically. Or do you want to send a payment reminder to members who forgot to pay their membership fee? You can do that with a single click instead of manually searching through databases.” Members also update some of the information in those databases themselves. “Our members have access to the platform. If someone moves, they can update their own address details. Members can also download the necessary certificates and documents themselves.”
A two-way process
Are there things that could be improved? “Occasionally,” Lesley nods. “Sometimes a situation arises where I think it would be useful if something worked differently. But you often only discover these things along the way. We recently encountered an unusual situation involving a course that consisted of a series of sessions spread across several days. It turned out that people had to register separately for each evening instead of registering for the entire series at once.” In such cases, it becomes a two-way process: “I call my contact at Alistar and ask what is possible. That is how they have already developed several useful solutions for us.”
“Communication is extremely important to us. First, it is crucial that we clearly explain what we want and formulate it properly. Only then can we expect the software developers to design it correctly. Second, we expect Alistar to make timely adjustments when necessary. One of our courses was once listed as free of charge. Naturally, that suddenly attracted a great deal of interest (laughs). Issues like that need to be resolved very quickly.”
“Incidentally, if my regular contact is on holiday, someone else at Alistar is ready to take over. It is useful to have such a large team of complementary experts available around the clock. If someone experiences problems registering through our intranet, they naturally do not want to wait two weeks.”
Lesley is clearly satisfied with CommunityManager and her collaboration with Alistar. “Everything runs much more smoothly and quickly. The annual mass invoicing process used to be incredibly painstaking: printing everything, putting it into envelopes and adding stamps. It saves an enormous amount of time.”
“Behind the scenes, Alistar is also continuously working to improve everything and develop new functionalities whenever needed. They are a partner that thinks along with us. And we truly appreciate that.”
