How to stop members lapsing

Members leave for four reasons

1. They got nothing out of it. No referrals, no introductions, no work. Usually true, and usually partly their own fault, which does not help you keep them.
2. They stopped coming. Attendance goes first, always, and the decision follows the habit.
3. They never belonged. Nobody took them under their wing in the first month and they stayed a stranger in a room of friends.
4. Something changed. The business moved, the job changed, the childcare stopped working. You will lose these whatever you do, and that is fine.

The first three are yours to fix. Here is how.

Watch attendance, not enthusiasm

Two missed meetings in a row from a regular is the earliest useful signal. Not an email: a phone call, from a member rather than the organiser, asking if everything is all right. Half the time it is a holiday. The other half you have just caught somebody drifting, at the point where a conversation still works.

Give the first six weeks to somebody

A new member who has had three one to ones in their first six weeks almost never leaves at the first renewal. One who has had none almost always does. Assign a buddy on day one, name them out loud, and check in after a month. This one habit changes retention more than anything else on this page.

Make the value visible before they have to judge it

Members forget what they got. They remember what they paid. If somebody has received four referrals and two introductions this year, they should be able to see that written down before they decide, not try to recall it.

Log referrals and one to ones, with values where members know them, and show people their own record. In NetworkingBadger a member can see what they have given, what they have received and what came of it, which turns renewal from a judgement of mood into a look at the numbers.

Notice the member who only receives, and the one who only gives

The member who never gives a referral will not be missed but will leave anyway, because a group you put nothing into is easy to give up. The member who gives constantly and receives nothing is the dangerous one: they are propping the group up and they will go quietly, then take their contacts with them. Both need a conversation, and neither should be discovered at renewal.

Run renewals like a process, not a reminder

• Everybody has a renewal date recorded, whatever their cycle.
• A reminder goes out before the date, not after it has gone.
• Anybody who has not renewed within a week gets a personal message from a human, not a second automated one.
• Somebody who leaves is asked why, once, without an argument.

That last one is worth more than it sounds. Three honest exit answers will tell you more about the group than a year of committee discussion.

Do not let a lapse be silent

The worst outcome is a member who simply stops existing: no renewal, no conversation, and nobody sure whether they left. Keep a clear list of who is due, who has paid and who has lapsed, and work it every month. Lapsed members are also your best source of returning members, and they only come back if they left on good terms and somebody stays in touch.

What good looks like

For a settled group, losing around one member in five over a year is normal, and a good group replaces them without thinking about it because visitors keep arriving. If you are losing a third and gaining almost nobody, the problem is rarely the fee. It is usually that new members were never looked after and the value was never visible.

Two practical next steps: keep visitors coming so normal losses do not hurt, and get the fee and the collection right so nobody lapses through administration alone. If you want the tracking handled for you, that is what NetworkingBadger is for.