“As we worked with Agile Reasoning, we told them what we wanted and they built it. Everything is unique to us, exactly what we asked for.”
- Nikki Lewallen, Vice President of Development – Rainmakers
Rainmakers Membership Database Solution
Challenge:
Member-based organization, Rainmakers Marketing Group was founded in 2002 as a business-to-business networking organization. Growing rapidly from an informal monthly networking event, serving the Indianapolis community to an organization with more than 1,500 members and 40+ events a month covering most of the state, Rainmakers required a robust membership database to track member status, activities, renewals and requests.
Like many small businesses, they began managing their membership information with a series of spreadsheets which they quickly outgrew. As they searched for a more complete solution, they found a membership database application which seemed to have many of the features they required. While it was a significant improvement over the spreadsheets it was not as flexible, comprehensive or customizable as the Rainmaker team had hoped.
The desktop application required staff members to print member lists in advance, manually record attendance, and then update the database upon their return to the office. With 2 and 3 events occurring on the same day, often 50 or 100 miles from the office it might be several days before a staff member could return to update the records. The task of preparing for events and updating the database was becoming extremely time consuming , and left little time to focus on sales, member support or process improvement.
“Using our old system I was in the office late nights and every weekend trying to catch up on work and get things accomplished,” said Nikki Lewallen, Vice President Development. “Because the system wasn’t web-based, if I was managing an event in Columbus, Ft. Wayne or Bloomington, I had to come back to the office to update our database.”
“Our chairmen and their teams were waiting two and three days to get event reports.” said Founder Tony Scelzo. “While that may not seem like a long time to many businesses, in our industry, we have 48 hours to follow up. After that our ability to close the prospect, drops significantly.”
As Rainmakers began to look outside the boundaries of Indiana, it became apparent the existing system would be a major obstacle to supporting remote events, and creating a personal connection with members in widely diverse geographic areas. In addition the expansion would require support staff to be available to answer questions and make more outbound client calls in support of the new territories. With the existing system, the time consuming double and triple entries were consuming so much time, Rainmakers was considering adding additional staff to handle the support requirements.
Solution:
Rainmakers turned to Agile Reasoning to create custom, web-based software to replace their member database and member center. This product integrated the two former applications and merged them into one, protecting critical information via passwords and codes. This allows information to be updated quickly and to sync to ensure data is correct in all venues of the database.
The new web-based system, with predictive-type filling, allows staff members to access the database remotely from anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection, making member check-in at events a one step process.
At the end of the event, the system generates attendance and status reports automatically and distributes the information to staff and board members. What used to take a day or two is now done in an instant, with reports often arriving in the email inbox of board members before they return home from the event
As Rainmakers evolved, the members, staff, and chairmen developed their own slang. The application uses Rainmaker terminology, not generic terms to describe fields, functions and files. New staff members are able to come up to speed quickly because they don’t need to learn two sets of terms for every task. Nor do they waste time, skipping over unnecessary data fields.
“Our previous system contained tabs and features we didn’t need or use, they were just taking up space,” said Lewallen. “As we worked with Agile Reasoning, we told them what we wanted and they built it. Everything is unique to us, exactly what we asked for. There is nothing superfluous. And the simplicity has reduced our use of paper, and time spent filing the paper reports.”
In addition to reducing the amount of time spent on administrative tasks, the new system allows centralizes all their information, provides more detailed reports, and the ability to customize output to look at specific events, groups of events or time periods. As a business management tool, the data allows the management team to make more informed decisions about which events are under performing, where additional attention is required, and which events are truly the most effective, based on a series of criteria such as attendance, guest count and closing rate.
Implementation and Results:
As with many custom software projects, staff members identified missing elements and functions as they began to use the software. Agile Reasoning anticipated there would be changes and built in time to accommodate additional requests. “If there is something we left out or didn’t exactly like Agile Reasoning was on it and had usually had a solution in a day,” said Lewallen. “As a result, every single component it is up to our satisfaction and designed to our needs.”
After a month Rainmakers could not be happier with their new software. Since the implementation Rainmakers staff has been able to spend more time marketing and following up with members and prospects instead of entering and re-entering data. This has led to an increase in the quality of member services delivered and program enrollment. There are fewer complaints about lack of follow-up, since special requests can be noted directly into the database. “This month we have already seen an 20% increase in our membership,” said Lewallen. “There is no doubt in my mind that it’s due in part to our improved efficiency driven by our new software.”
“A year ago, national expansion was something we talked about, as a someday, maybe,” said Scelzo. “There were so many obstacles, it didn’t seem practical. Now, with this simplified system, we are ready to launch Ohio and the rest of the Midwest in the not too distant future.
What’s Next?
Rainmakers is already working with Agile Reasoning to extend the functionality of the database to something which will be useful to all members. “We envision a contact management tool, with expanded profiles, which will provide all our members with the most current contact information for their peers,” said Lewallen. “The tool will allow members to find people they want to meet, then request and make introductions. This capability will take our organization to the next level allowing us to easily grow from a local to national rapidly” said Lewallen.
