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Delaware YMCA prioritizes the digital experience to increase online registrations
Impact
$500K
saved annually in costs
4x
increase in online registrations
7
branches state-wide
Organization:
YMCA
Community:
7 branches
Individuals Served:
100,000
OVERVIEW
Increase online registrations by 4x and save money? Yes, please!
By prioritizing the digital experience for staff and customers, the YMCA of Delaware is connected to their members and community better than ever before - while simultaneously saving money and gaining time.
It is part of our partnership commitment at Traction Rec to remain connected and collaborative with our clients, even after their initial CRM migration is complete. Our partners at the YMCA of Delaware took some time to sit down with our East Coast YMCA Team to share insightful feedback regarding their CRM evaluation process, change management strategy, and immediate benefits they’ve experienced since going live on Salesforce and Traction Rec in January 2021.
With a mission of empowering youth, fostering healthy living, and promoting strong communities, the YMCA of Delaware serves over 100,000 people annually and is the only state-wide YMCA with 7 member branches, a youth resource center, overnight camp, and a conference center.
Our fundraising management process, alone, used to take up to 30 days to complete, and now it takes about 1 hour.
Emily Glading
Senior Director of Information Systems
challenge
Disparate data and manual process
After years of struggling with siloed databases, limited technical flexibility, and managing constituent data across 12+ different systems, the Y’s journey to Traction Rec began with a phased approach. The lack of data integrity, manual and time-consuming tasks, along with a desire for improved member and staff experiences, became drivers for change.
Despite various pandemic related setbacks, which forced the Y Delaware team to work with a smaller-than-planned internal project team, transition to a remote working environment, and adjust programming strategies in accordance with ever-changing facility restrictions, the Y was able to complete their migration on time, on budget, and with the level of support they were promised by the Traction Rec project team.
Solution
Simplified, self-service for all
The YMCA of Delaware recognized Traction Rec as the most flexible CRM and operations platform on the market, with the capability to modify, adapt, and integrate as their organizational needs evolve. Here were a few of their top considerations:
Owning the technology: Their legacy system required technical support for any platform changes they needed, no matter how basic. Now, with simple point-and-click functionality, the Y can direct when and how the technology works for them:
- Customizing the platform to their business needs
- Building out business and process-specific workflows and automations
- Creating and pulling custom report types
- Setting up dashboards to inform real-time data and sharing information across departments or business initiatives
Complete transparency: The project scope was honest and all-encompassing of the customizations, integrations, training, and timeframe required for the project. This fixed pricing model was refreshingly different compared to other CRM vendors who often provided low initial quotes, coupled with the need for frequent change orders and costly custom integrations, indicating significant price-creep and project timeline setbacks.
Gaining a product, and a partnership: Leading up to, during, and post go live implementation, the Traction Rec teams were collaborative from the start. The project timeline planning took into account the Y’s unique program schedule and seasonal considerations. The Services Team ensured staff and their employees understood the capabilities of the system, with confidence to make adjustments, customizations, or even add workflow automations specific to their needs. As ongoing questions arose, they received guidance to get the most out of their platform.
The YMCA (and every Traction Rec customer) has access to not only a Customer Success team, but an entire organization that is committed to understanding their needs, and helping to drive their unique business model, platform requirements, and future-looking objectives.
Traction Rec’s fixed pricing model was refreshingly different compared to other CRM vendors.
Emily Glading
Senior Director of Information Systems
REsults
A connected network (and supported staff)
Upon migrating onto Traction Rec, the Y noticed an increased influx of technical support requests from staff and members due to basic platform and functionality upgrades (as can be expected when initiating such a big change!).
Though this change initially placed significant demand on their administrative staff, the YMCA was quick to react and initiated a Business Resource Team:
- They leveraged the Case Management tool and assigned a dedicated team to track, manage, and follow-up with technical support requests.
- This dramatically improved their capacity to provide timely technical support, as well as freed up the time of their administrative and front-desk staff.
<stat_table table_id="1">
<stat left="$500,000" right="savings" bottom="in annual costs" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="Reduced" right="process time" bottom="30 day manual management now takes 1 hour" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="4x" right="increase" bottom="in digital registrations" table_id="1"></stat>
<stat left="80%" right="of all transactions" bottom="are now completed online" table_id="1"></stat>
</stat_table>
How it’s going (Hint! Really, really, well)
Today, with its over 400 active users utilizing Traction Rec, the YMCA has taken a dramatic turn, and continues to grow - bringing to life memberships, programs, camps, childcare, and so much more.
Saving money (so dollars can be better invested elsewhere)
- Being able to process administrative tasks centrally, via Salesforce and Traction Rec, has saved them an estimated $500,000/year in operational costs.
- Tasks such as program registrations, member account updates, or payment processing used to be hugely resource and time-intensive processes. With Traction Rec, these are automated and self-service tools for members that no longer require staff resources.
Saving time (to focus on the more important stuff, like engaging members!)
- Transitioning from manual processes to automated systems has led to drastic time-savings for staff. In one example, by automating and integrating their Classy Fundraising Management tool with Traction Rec, the YMCA reduced a 30 day manual fundraising management process down to 1 hour.
- There are great examples across their entire organization of manual tasks, such as contact updates, sex offender screening, and virtual registration of guests passes, all being eliminated thanks to automated processes.
Delighting Members (most importantly)
- One of the Y’s top goals was to improve the member experience. With Traction Rec, the Y has seen a 4x increase in online program registrations.
- Today, 80% of program registrations are now successfully completed online. Previously, on their legacy system, this number was only at 20% due to the complicated and frustrating user experience.
- They receive positive feedback on the user-friendly self-service interface available to their Members - significantly reducing the support needed from the front-desk and their member services team on a daily basis.
We love celebrating success
Traction Rec is proud to be able to work alongside and support this resilient, driven, and dedicated YMCA - always looking for opportunities to better support their staff, members, and wider community. Hands up, if you’re interested in making these changes possible for your YMCA, JCC, or community center with Traction Rec! Connect with us.
