Exploring Uncharted Waters...Membership Surveys

"The Ferreira Company assisted The Commerce Club in its membership survey and strategic plan. They presented the results of the survey in an easy to understand format that allowed the club to comprehend how the members felt about issues confronting the club. The graphs used and the cross-tabulations made it easy to see where select groups within the membership differed in their view point on the issues."

Mead Grady, CCM, GeneralManager, Peachtree Golf Club, Georgia; Former GM at The Commerce Club 

 

The preferences, opinions and ideas of your members should be the beacon that guides you through the sometimes turbulent waters of club management. It’s not enough to listen to the vocal minority...you need to know what the silent majority thinks and feels.

Membership surveys are a great tool for gathering this vital information, either as a precursor to a strategic plan, or just to get feedback on club issues such as a renovation or new capital project.

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The best way to uncover the real preferences of your members, such as what features and services they want and what they would be willing to pay for them, is to conduct a carefully designed and unbiased survey. You must ask specific questions and get clear cut answers. Then the survey responses must be accurately interpreted.

    Developing a membership survey is an 8-step process :

  1. Meet with club leaders to learn about key issues for the survey
  2. Conduct member focus groups to uncover additional key areas
  3. Develop a customized questionnaire
  4. Distribute survey to all members
  5. Scan questionnaires into a computer database or collect data via a website survey for accurate compilation
  6. Statistically analyze the data and compare results to comparable clubs
  7. Determine if differences exist among segments of the membership (i.e., membership categories, age groups, etc.)
  8. Create a detailed report with colored graphs and tables

There are several key advantages to this process–focus group participants tend to be supporters of the survey, encouraging other members to complete it. And a survey delivered to all members eliminates possible complaints about sampling errors. Our response rate averages over 50%.

Our extensive research background and experience with hundreds of clubs across North America gives us an outstanding track record in forecasting how members will vote on a variety of issues. This type of information is invaluable when club management is faced with important decisions such as capital projects and financing alternatives.