The Role of Emotions in the Membership Experience

One of the factors making member journey mapping so insightful is its focus on a member’s emotions during their experiences with your association. You don’t only look at what the member does—the process or experience—but also how they might feel while doing it.

Why are emotions so important to our understanding of their experience? Because, Diane said, 85 percent of what we experience is emotional and subconscious and only 15 percent is rational and conscious.

Marketers have long known and leveraged this fact, but, apparently, hoteliers haven’t. Diane asked us to recall what we feel when unpacking in a hotel room. For example, when you open the closet at some hotels, the hangers have tiny hooks at the top that hold them to a skinny closet rod. Intentionally or unintentionally, the hotel is sending a message: “Don’t even think about it, you’re not going to steal our hangers!”

When designing a member experience, such as joining or onboarding, think about the subconscious messages the member may receive and the emotions they may feel. An experience must always take into account their emotional as well as their functional needs. If you succeed in meeting both types of needs, your association is more likely to benefit from increased member attention, participation, retention, referrals, and revenue.

Journey Mapping a Member’s Experience

How can you understand what your members experience as they interact with your association? Member journey mapping helps you step into their shoes. This collaborative exercise helps your association think about, understand, and design experiences from the member’s perspective.

Member journey mapping is a visual illustration of a member’s needs, emotions, and perceptions over the course of their relationship with your association—and no artistic skills are required! The four goals of member journey mapping are:

1. INSIGHTS: Understanding what contributes to a member’s experience and what’s really happening on an emotional level by digging into their needs and wants.
2. ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES: Discovering what’s getting in the way of a better experience and what can be improved to meet the member’s needs.
3. INNOVATION: Designing new, engaging experiences that solve emotional and functional needs.
4. IMPACT: Benefitting from the results of your journey mapping exercise—improving membership metrics and delivering greater business value.

The Member Journey Mapping Exercise

We were ambitious at CEX. We attempted to examine ten different touchpoints of a chapter member’s journey. Although we didn’t have enough time to complete each one, we did enough to realize the value of this exercise.

Our ten touchpoints represented different milestones in the first five years of a chapter membership:

• Prospect attends a chapter event as a guest and picks up membership information. (2013)
• Prospect joins National through her employer. (2013)
• New member opts-in to National and chapter emails, newsletters, and publications. (2013)
• Member attends awards gala. (2013)
• Chapter board leader invites her to join the conference planning committee. (2014)
• Attends the chapter’s annual conference. (2014)
• Enters and wins a chapter award. (2014)
• Co-chairs the conference. (2015)
• Elected to the chapter board. (2016)
• Meets her new employer while serving on the chapter board. (2018)

We looked at several different aspects of each touchpoint, starting with the member’s needs, emotions, and expectations. I captured some of the points made at my table during a discussion of touchpoint #2—when the member joins National. So many “aha” moments occurred as my tablemates realized what new members might be experiencing. I’m sure many of them would have been happy to work on this exercise all day.

Step 1: Needs, Emotions & Expectations

What is the new member thinking and feeling during this specific touchpoint? What is the voice in her head saying as she joins your association? What is she expecting? Here are some of the needs, emotions, and expectations a new member might feel when joining National:

• She’s happy her employer is supporting her membership.
• Optimistic about the value she’ll receive.
• Wondering about the ROI for her organization and for her time. Will membership help her do her job better? Will her boss continue to support her involvement and pay for membership if she doesn’t show some kind of progress at work?
• Perplexed about what she should do next.

The table agreed that this initial experience could color the rest of her new member experience.

Step 2: Factors That Contribute to the Experience

Think about the people and things the member comes into direct contact with along the journey. Who and what influences their experience? Sometimes even the little things (microactions) can turn an experience around.

What contributes (or not) to the joining experience:

• Is the joining experience easy, quick, and intuitive? How did she end up on your website? How was her website user experience? Did she understand what you were asking on the application? Did she understand why you were asking?
• How relevant and useful was onboarding? Does she know what to do now?
• Is the communication frequency about right?
• Did she find any initial value in the resources you offer?
• Does membership fit into her life? Will it be worth her time and money? Her employer’s money?

Step 3: Opportunities – Unmet Functional & Emotional Needs

When you identify a member’s pain points during their membership journey, you can look for their root cause and figure out why the member might be feeling that way. Pain points represent opportunities to enhance the member experience.

Pain points (opportunities) during the joining experience:

• Feeling confused and/or overwhelmed during onboarding.
• Feeling like the association doesn’t really understand her needs and expectations.
• Wanting to build her network, but feeling excluded or intimidated.
• Hoping for peer networking and/or mentoring, but not knowing how to find it.
• Frustrated by attempts to get to know (and be known by) prospective customers.

Step 4: Understand the “Why”

The third step (also covered in part 1) of the member journey mapping exercise is identifying possible pain points (opportunities for improvement) during the joining and onboarding experience, for example:

• The new member feels confused and/or overwhelmed during onboarding.
• She feels like the association doesn’t really understand her needs and expectations.
• Wants to build her network but feels excluded or intimidated.
• Hopes for peer networking and/or mentoring, but doesn’t know how to find it.
• Frustrated by her attempts to get to know (and be known by) prospective customers.

Now, in step 4, we figure out why this pain point or unmet need (opportunity) exists. Diane introduced us to a technique—the 5-Whys root cause analysis—that helps you define the “Why” behind the pain point and get at the real cause. This technique helps you uncover emotional needs, motivators, and/or the real cause of a problem.

How Journey Mapping Works

Once a problem has been recognized, repeatedly ask “Why” questions to drill down to root causes. Asking “Why” five times allows you to move beyond obvious answers and reflect on less obvious explanations or causes.

When our table asked five Whys about the onboarding pain point, we came up with several possible root causes. The conversation went something like this.

Why doesn’t the new member know what to do next? Why can’t she see the appropriate pathway?

• Because we don’t have sufficient or appropriate communication channels with new members.
• Because our communication isn’t clear.
• Because we haven’t learned enough about her to provide relevant information.
• Because our marketing expertise is lacking.
• Because there’s resistance to change in our organization.
• Because we’re dealing with assumptions and blind spots caused by legacy thinking.